The Soul Weaver

CHAPTER 32

Paulo brought the light. I sat on the stone platform where Karon and Gerick lay pale and still, feeling them grow cold even as I willed them not. Roxanne sat beside me, her head on my breast, weeping silently. As I stroked her hair, a certain calm settled over me, even as my own tears flowed unchecked.

“I had to go all the way back to the first guardroom to find this,” said Paulo, setting a small, sputtering torch in a bracket on the wall, revealing the devastation around us in ghastly clarity. “Nobody was about. Don’t understand it.” He gazed down at Gerick. His voice was husky. “I guess he’s free of ‘em now. Don’t seem fair. The Singlars are going to be torn up real bad.”

“I don’t think Karon was able to save them,” I said. “If Gerick was right, then they’re all destroyed.”

“The Bounded may be gone, ma’am… I don’t know. But the Singlars are safe… well, as safe as anyone could be in Valleor.”

“You did it,” said Roxanne, lifting her head. “Just as we planned.”

“What are you talking about?” I said.

“Paulo took the Singlars out of the Bounded,” said Roxanne. “We planned it before we came here, gathering all the Singlars we could find into the Tower City and telling them to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. If it looked as if Gerick were going to die without a… solution… Paulo was to go back to the Bounded and take them out. Gerick believed that as long as he was alive the Singlars should be able to move through the passage up near this sheepherder’s place in northern Valleor.”

“You really did such a thing?” I said to Paulo.

He nodded. “After the Prince sent you away the other night, knowing he had to kill the young master.” Tears filled Paulo’s eyes. “They both knew it. So they sent me back. Wasn’t nothing I could do here.”

I gathered Paulo into my arms, and we both wept for a while.

Roxanne decided when it had been enough. “Don’t you think we should tell someone what’s happened? They need to know about the Prince and all. And if I’m to get back home to see to the Singlars… ”

“I’ll go,” said Paulo, dabbing his face with his sleeve. “Nothing better to be at.”

Paulo returned to the dungeon inside the hour. He had found a troop of terrified warriors at the far end of the passage and asked to be taken to the Preceptors. “They stayed back from me, like maybe they wasn’t sure whether I might be one of the Lords myself,” he reported.

But whatever the warriors had thought, they had taken Paulo to the council chamber where Mem’Tara and Ce’Aret were standing watch on Ven’Dar. “I told them what happened as best I could, and they said to come right back and tell you not to touch nor move anything, and not to let nobody come here. Wait for them, they said.”

The wait was not long. Ce’Aret arrived first. The old woman knelt alongside Karon and laid her hand on his forehead, closing her eyes. I could tell by her slow rocking when she began to grieve. After a while, she stood up and nodded her head to me. “The Prince’s lady… here. Alive. Your presence tells me that the mysteries I feel and see are a more complex weaving of joy and sorrow than imagining can tell.” Her withered hand gently stroked Karon’s hair. “It will take a very long time indeed to take in this sorrow.”

“Yes.” The world, the conversation, the stone, and the torchlight might have been illusion. I could not feel any of them.

“And the prisoner… the Fourth… lies dead as well… ”

I nodded, and she shook her head sadly. “A Soul Weaver, the Prince told me. Corrupted before we could know him.” She paused for a while, as if to ponder her own assessment. “I’ve no wish to intrude on your grieving, lady, but as you well know, these events are of such significance to our world… and your own, as well… I must summon the others.”

I had no strength to explain that Gerick was innocent. What would it matter? “Do as you need. As long as I can stay with them for a while.”

She nodded, then took on the slightly vague expression of a Dar’Nethi who was speaking in someone else’s mind. When she was finished, I asked her about Ven’Dar.

“He collapsed once the Prince left the council chamber,” she said. “He lives, but has not regained his senses. We continue to hope.”

A short time later, Mem’Tara swept into the room, followed by a hobbling Ustele. Once she’d paid her respects to Karon, Mem’Tara began to examine the room, from every finger’s breadth of the walls and floor to the oily stain where the oculus, the mask, and the diamonds had vanished. Ce’Aret saw to old Ustele, who knelt hard-faced beside his son and grandson, laying his hand on the knife, perhaps to gain some understanding of the circumstances of its use. I believed it would tell him that Men’Thor had done the terrible deed, but I didn’t think it would tell him why or the part he himself had played in it. Even if it did so, I wasn’t sure that he would understand it. Who would mourn Men’Thor properly? Who would judge his place in Dar’Nethi history? Before very long, the old man shoved Ce’Aret aside and hobbled out of the room.

I watched all these activities with no more involvement than a star observing the actions of those of us who crept about on the world’s surface - until Mem’Tara, examining Karon’s body, reached out for the black pyramid. “No!”

I said, surprised at the strength of my own voice. “Don’t touch it.”

The dark-haired sorceress raised her eyebrows in question.

“I just - ” It was too personal. Too intimate. As if she were reaching out for Karon’s soul. I would not have him violated in such a way, even by someone well-intentioned. How could I explain it? Follow the Way… “Isn’t it true that the dead should not be moved for several hours? Isn’t that your custom?”

Mem’Tara nodded. “Why yes, that’s usual. So that the soul will have crossed the Verges and will not need to find its way back to this life. I was only going to examine the device, but if it concerns you, I’ll leave it for a while. But the Prince caused his own death…”

Dar’Nethi history and custom were very clear. No Healer would attempt to revive one who had caused his own death, especially a soul who had been returned to life once before. And no Healer in all of Gondai would touch Gerick.

My heart constricted, laboring to pump blood through my dry veins. “Thank you, Mem’Tara. That would be better.”

The tall woman moved on to other matters.

Roxanne began talking, then, allowing the safe solidity of speech to soothe her. She told me the story of her rescue from the Guardian’s dungeon, and how she had tried to order Gerick around and hurt him and humiliate him… and how she had never imagined that she could find friendship in that strange land. And then she told me then how Radele had come into the Masters’ Chamber at the Precept House while she was hiding there, waiting for Bareil…

“When he pulled out the ring and started it spinning, I knew it was wicked. Gerick was so horrified by the one in the cave of the Source, though he wouldn’t tell me what it was. But you had told me how he became a Lord and that the spinning ring was the Lords’ tool. Just seeing it made me feel sick. As the ring spun, this Radele began to speak, and I recognized his voice. He was the man I heard taunting my father on the night he was enchanted, the one touching him. If I’d had a weapon, I’d have killed him. Then I heard these other dreadful voices… horrid… just like here… though no one was in the room. As soon as Radele left, I ran out of the house. But I got lost and there were so many people around, and no one understood me. I thought that once it was daylight I could find my way. I’ve never been so glad to see anyone as I was when Paulo came running down the street, calling my name. But now - ” Tears dripped from the end of her nose. “By the Holy Twins, what manner of weakling queen will I be? I can’t stop talking. Can’t stop thinking.”

“You did the world a great service, Roxanne.” I put my arm around her and laid my cheek on her tousled hair. “This is just very hard.”

Ce’Aret offered one of her aides to attend us, so I sent Paulo and Roxanne with the woman to find something to eat. They needed something to do, while I, though I had no purpose in mind, had no desire but to stay exactly where I was. To leave was simply unthinkable.

I sat with my arms wrapped about my knees and began telling Karon and Gerick how desperately I would miss them. I crafted the words carefully in my mind as Karon had taught me to do so long ago. “It makes my head hurt when I have to sort out one of your thoughts from another,” he would say. “You always have fifteen ideas popping up at once, and very noisy opinions on all of them.” Ce’Aret and Mem’Tara must surely have believed I’d lost my mind to see me sitting by my dead family, smiling at the sweet remembrance. Or perhaps not. Finding joy, even in such overwhelming grief, was the very essence of the Dar’Nethi Way.

“Ah, Vasrin!” The exclamation came from behind me, startling me out of my drowsy contemplation.

“Ven’Dar!” The two Preceptors and I voiced our astonishment as one.

“A considerable delight to see you so quickly recovered, my lord,” said Ce’Aret, opening her palms and genuflecting. “We hoped.”

The Word Winder greeted the two women, and then his firm, warm hands enfolded my own, his kind eyes searching my face as if he could read the story of the battle from my grief. Though I welcomed the comfort and strength he offered, I knew what he needed to be doing. After only a moment, I gently pushed him away. He moved on to the two who lay beside me.

Standing beside the stone table, he swept his eyes over Karon. “Ah, my friend,” he whispered, laying a gentle hand on Karon’s brow, “what sorrow can compare with this, unless it is that you’ll never know what you’ve done? You never spoke of L’Tiere. Too close, you said. You had seen the Verges, and the desire would be too strong if you were to dwell on the memory. You wanted to give yourself to life. And so you did. But if there is knowledge of this life in the one that follows, then know this, my Prince, a message has already come to Avonar that rain falls in the Wastes. I cannot but think it is your doing.”

He took Karon’s hand and sat down beside him. Dar’Nethi leave-taking could extend a very long time, Karon had told me, but it always began this way, a little conversation, quiet meditation, embracing with eyes and heart the evidence of one’s loss. I did not disturb Ven’Dar. His presence was a comfort.

After a while he shook off his silence, came around the table and took my hand once more. “There are no words sufficient to this day, my lady, even for one so comfortable with words as myself. The event is too complex for ‘I’m sorry,’ and ‘thank you’ is far too ordinary.”

“To hear your hopeful news and to see you living is thanks enough. You will be D’Arnath’s Heir as my husband intended. I wish you a path of great beauty.”

He eased himself onto the stone platform beside me. “Would it pain you to tell me what happened? I’ve heard only bits and pieces since I’ve come back to my senses.”

“I believe it went very much as Karon had planned, even after he understood about Radele and the oculus. You probably know more than I do.”

“Not at all. He told me nothing of his plan save my own part: I was to be named his successor because it wasn’t possible for his son to serve, as the boy’s mind was still linked to the Lords. My first duty as his successor would be to bait the trap for Men’Thor with myself. Yes, you were to be his witness to tell the Preceptorate of Men’Thor’s treachery if it came necessary. That’s all I knew.”

When I had told the full story, he punctuated it with a puff of amazement. “Vasrin’s Hand! If this is true… if the Lords were fully joined with the boy at the moment of his death… Well, we shall see what results from it. Your son was blessed that you were here to remind him of his own goodness before the end. It sounds as if you did exactly what was needed.”

“Play the part. Follow the Way,” I murmured. Somewhere beyond the outer guardroom a door opened and banged shut again, causing a slight movement in the air. The torchlight flickered.

“What’s that?”

I told Ven’Dar of Karon’s nighttime visit and the words that had echoed in my head all day. He looked bemused. “He told you not to give up even in the depths of sorrow and also to follow the Way - contradictory admonitions, for, of course, following the Way could be said to be ‘giving up,’ relinquishing our desires to change what is.”

Like a bubble rising to the surface of a pond, words welled out of my grief. “If he would just have told us more of his intent. Gerick was in such pain, such despair, and Karon offered him nothing until he was almost lost. I didn’t understand it. I still don’t.” It didn’t seem right I should be saying such a thing, but I couldn’t stop myself.

“Think, dear lady. He planned to rob the Lords of their prize by an extraordinary means. And if the Lords took possession of the boy, both living in his body and linked to his soul at the moment of his soul weaving… his transference into his father… his death… perhaps the Lords would die, too. But if Gerick, or any of us, had the least suspicion of what was to occur… ”

“… the Lords might never have come.”

“In order to make their sacrifice meaningful, the Prince had to proceed alone, to relinquish the very comfort for the boy and for himself and for you that might have made it bearable.”

“So we’re left with his words. ‘Follow the Way. You must not give up… ’ Give up what? It’s been three hours; they’re beyond the Verges. I should let Mem’Tara have her way with them, and go find Paulo and Roxanne.”

“Mem’Tara?”

“She wanted to take the pyramid stone. I couldn’t bear the thought of her touching it, so I reminded her that the bodies shouldn’t be moved for half a day.”

“Follow the Way… must not give up… play the part… ” Ven’Dar’s calm voice took on an edge of excitement. “Tell me, my lady, have you - please, don’t think me foolish or rude - spoken to your son or the Prince as you stood vigil with them here?”

Ven’Dar wouldn’t pry without reason. Politeness and embarrassment were trivialities. “So much never gets said, and we’d been apart so long. In a way I’ve been speaking to them since it happened, but - ”

“And before the Prince touched the crystal?”

“Yes.”

“As you did in Zhev’Na when the boy was transformed?”

“I suppose it’s much the same. Why?”

The Preceptor - no, he was the Prince of Avonar now - jumped up and went to the other side of the platform, where he closed his eyes and placed his hands on Gerick’s breast. After several suspended moments, Ven’Dar sighed deeply and shook his head. “I thought perhaps - Paulo told us that when your son first entered him, he unlocked his own cell door and pulled his own body, still breathing, from confinement. To take young Gerick with him beyond the Verges, the Prince would have had the boy come into him - perform his soul weaving. Only then could the stone have released them both. Your bond with your son was strong enough to survive his transformation into a Lord of Zhev’Na; with the thread of love and words, you led him out of that darkness. And so I had a brief hope…”

“But he does not breathe.”

“No. His heart is still.”

You must not give up hope…

Red-clad guards from Ustele’s house carried Men’Thor and Radele away on velvet-draped litters, and Ce’Aret and Mem’Tara finished their examination of the room. “We should go now, my lord,” they said to Ven’Dar. “The people are afraid and hear only one rumor more dreadful than the next. When word goes out with Men’Thor’s and Radele’s bodies, it will be worse. They need reassurance from their Prince.”

Ven’Dar shook his head. “As most senior Preceptor, Ce’Aret, it is your place to inform the people of Gondai that Prince D’Natheil is dead. Do so, and tell them I stand vigil with him as our Way prescribes. I would ask them to do the same - to hold the Prince and his beloved son in their thoughts as a lighthouse shines its brilliance into the tempest, so that wherever they journey, they may find the Way.”

The two women bowed and left us there, Ven’Dar and me, sitting together with Karon and Gerick. After a while Paulo’s torch guttered out, leaving us in the dark, but Ven’Dar made no move to create another light. Instead he held my hand in quiet companionship, and I felt his gentle thoughts of Karon entwine with my own. As it had been sixteen years before on a bitter day in Leire, I was left to mourn, only this time, I was not alone.

And so it was in the darkness of the silent guardroom, as I drowsed against Ven’Dar’s shoulder, trying to maintain my one-sided conversation with Karon and Gerick, that I felt the first tug on the other end of the lifeline…