Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (18 page)

speck of light piercing the emerald gloom. My destination . . . if I could but shove the masses of

greenery out of my way, I had no doubt that I could reach the light. Well rested, bursting with

strength, I swept aside the verdant obstacles. But as I traversed the forest, the light got no closer

and the green faded to gray. . . .

The cool brush of pine boughs hardened into cold, rough stone, the wispy mosses into a white linen

sheet and gray wool blankets. Only the light was constant, unwavering. Through the thick glass of my

window the sun glared from the eastern sky, demanding that my eyes come open to greet the morning.

Such a strange sensation. How long had it been since my eyes had opened of their own volition, no

hand on my shoulder rattling my teeth, no sarcastic taunting? “Must I get my scraping knife? Your limbs

have attached themselves to this couch like barnacles to a coastal schooner.” Or, “What dream is this

that holds you? You lie here like an empty-headed cat in a sunbeam, dreaming only of your full stomach

while two worlds hold their breath, awaiting your pleasure.”

I stretched and sat up. My dream had not lied. I felt rested as I had not in waking memory, and I was

ravenously hungry. Had Dassine succumbed to pity at my lamentable state? We had been through five or

six sessions in the circle of candles since my collapse in Lady Seriana’s garden on the far side of the

Bridge, and from each I had emerged a ragged refugee, taking longer each time to orient myself in the

present.

When I was a child in Avonar, the lost Avonar of the mundane world, my brothers and I had a

favorite place. A small river tumbled down from the snowfields of Mount Karylis in the summer, clear

and icy. At certain places on the forested slopes, the water would be captured by great boulders forming

deep clear pools, perfect for swimming. High above one of these pools was a chute of smooth rocks,

worn away by a spring that raced down the rocks to join the river. We would slide naked down the

chute and fly through the air before plunging into the pool far below. The experience teetered on the

glorious edge of terror.

In these latest sessions of reliving my lost memories, I had felt as if I were on that long downward

slide again, racing along a path that would soon leave me hanging helplessly in the air, ready to plunge

into icy darkness. Whatever awaited me beyond the smooth surface—the enchantments that hid my own

life from me—was terrifying, yet I could no more stop myself than I could have checked my careening

path down that rocky chute.

Dassine had shown no inclination to let my difficulties slow my progress, and so, on the morning that

my eyes opened of themselves, I was immensely curious as to what had caused this change of heart. Our

last session had ended in late morning, and I had not dallied before falling into bed. Unless the sun’s

course of life had taken as strange a turn as had my own, I had slept the clock around.

I shivered in the unusually cold air and put on my robe, expecting Dassine to burst in on me at any

moment, raising his exuberant eyebrows in disdain. The water in my pitcher was frozen solid. Another

oddity. My washing water had never been anything but tepid, even on the coldest mornings. Having no

implement to crack the ice, I touched it with a bit of magic, only enough to melt the crust, not to make the

water warm. Liquidity was sufficient.

Even the use of power was not enough to bring Dassine. The first time I had attempted any magical

working in his house—putting out a small fire from a toppled lamp—he had pounced like a fox on a

dallying rabbit, berating me for wasting my strength on “frivolities.”

As I stepped through the doorway into Dassine’s lectorium, the air began to vibrate with a

high-pitched keening. The old villain had put a ward on my door. Dassine and I would have to talk again

about honesty and trust. Annoyed far beyond the irritation of the noise, I searched for some way to quiet

the screech, but to my amazement I couldn’t even find the door opening. Filling the space where the

doorway should have been was a span of dingy plaster and shelves laden with books and herb canisters

and uncounted years’ accumulation of dust and miscellany—all quite substantial. Instinct told me I should

experience a “hair-on-end” sensation when encountering such an illusion, but the enchantment was so

subtle, I couldn’t sense it at all.

The noise soon died away with nothing to show for it. My wonderment at his skill and annoyance at

his cheek were snuffed out by the weight of the silence. “Dassine,” I called quietly. No answer.

Along with his restrictions on use of power, dress, speech, and questioning, Dassine had forbidden

me to leave his lectorium unaccompanied. He enjoined me repeatedly not to trespass his limits, saying

that if I trusted him in all else, I had to trust that they were necessary. Truly, I hated to cross him, and so I

decided to wait before searching further, despite the strangeness of the morning.

The remnants of our last meal sat on the worktable: a basket of bread, now cold and dry, a plate with

a few scraps of hardened cheese, not two, but three dirty soup bowls, and two mugs smelling of

brandy—“Bareil’s best” Dassine had always called the contents of his green bottle. The candlesticks

were still put away, the newest crate of tall beeswax candles unopened on the floor beside them. The

chamber seemed no more and no less cluttered than usual. I sat at the table for a while, pushing around a

few of the red and green sonquey tiles scattered on the table. Half of the tiles were arranged in a pattern

bounded by finger-length silver bars, as if a game had been interrupted.

A small wooden cabinet lay toppled on the floor, its painted doors fallen open and several oddments

spilled out: a gold ring, a small enameled box holding a set of lignial cards, used for tracing the lines of

magical talent through a family, and one other item that fit in no easy classification—a plain circle of dull

wood about the size of my palm. Embedded in the wood was a small iron ring, and within the ring was

set a highly polished, pyramid-shaped crystal of pure black, its height half the span of my hand. I righted

the cabinet and picked up the things, setting them back on the shelves. While mulling what to do next, I

idly rubbed a finger on one smooth facet of the shining crystal . . . and my body vanished, along with the

world and everything in it. ...

I hung in void of pure black midnight, shot with threads of fine silver, as if someone had taken

the stars and smeared them across their dark canvas on the day of their creation. So quiet. . . so

still
. . .
though beyond the silence rang a faint chime of silver, as if the threads of light were

speaking . . . singing. In the farthest reaches of my vision shimmered a line of light, shifting slowly

from serene rose to glittering emerald to deep, rich blue
.

“I need to be there, I belong beyond that light. Oh gods, what is this hunger?” My nonexistent

eyes burned with tears. My incorporeal hands reached through the darkness toward the light.

How do you measure desire? Those things left behind? To leave this physical being was not an

obstacle; I’d grown to no comfort with it. To abandon my work, the memories of two lives so

dearly bought in these past months, gave me no pause. The friends and family who populated my

past were but ghosts who would be exorcised with the passage of that distant marker
—
the light

that now shot violet, mauve, and purple trailers to either side, up, down, right, left in this

directionless universe of darkness . . . so far away, teasing, tantalizing, luring me from all other

concern. My kingdom? “I’m a cripple, half a madman, no matter what Dassine says. Better they

find someone whole to lead them.” Like long, thin fingers, the silent bursts of color beckoned
.

How do you measure desire? Those things to be endured? The void itself was colder than the

winter morning on which I had waked unbidden, but the perimeters of my being burned
—
not the

cold fire of the smeared stars, not the colored fire of the distant aurora, but a conflagration that

seared through the barriers of memory . . . from the boundaries of reason. Roaring, agonizing fire

. . . hot iron about my wrists and ankles eating its way through flesh and bone . . . I was enveloped

in darkness, abandoned in unbounded pain and horror. The tongue I had so carelessly wished

away cried out, yet I would endure even this if I could but pass beyond the barrier of light. . .
.

Karon, my son, do not . . . not yet. Come back
. From outside the holocaust called a voice so faint .

. . almost unheard against the roar of the fire and my own cries.

Dassine. My mentor, my healer, my jailer. I had to tell him where I was going. If he understood about

this hunger, about the beckoning fingers of amber and blue, he wouldn’t hold me. I didn’t belong with

Dassine. But he didn’t answer my call, and I could not ignore his summoning. I dropped the crystal, and

the world rushed back. . . .

My robe was drenched with sweat. Shaking, chilled, I stepped back from the fallen artifact that lay so

innocently on the floor. Once I’d found Dassine, I would come back for it. “Dassine! Are you here?” I

called. No answer.

Two doors opened out of the lectorium. One led into the garden, the other to a short flight of steps

and the passage that took one into the main part of the rambling house. Taking the second, I wandered

down the passageways, peering into the rooms to either side. Dassine was nowhere in the house. I

wandered back to the lectorium, stopping in the kitchen long enough to grab a chunk of bread, a slab of

ham, and two pears from the larder. As I sat at the worktable and ate the bread and ham, I stared at the

odd device that lay on the floor and hovered so disturbingly on the peripheries of my thoughts. What

could be the purpose of such a thing?

Karon . . .

I almost missed it. The call was half audible and half in my mind, and its origin was behind the second

door, the door to the garden. Fool! I hadn’t looked there. I yanked the door open. Tangled in his cloak,

Dassine lay huddled against the wall, a trail of blood-streaked snow stretching behind him to the garden

gate. His lips were blue, and only the barest breath moved his chest and the bloody wound that gaped

there.

“Oh, gods, Dassine!” I carried him into the study and laid him on the couch by the cold hearth. With a

word and the flick of my fingers, the pile of twigs and ash in the fireplace burst into flames, and I bundled

him in everything I could find that might warm him. He shuddered, and his eyes flew open. Blood seeped

from his chest. Too much of it.

A knife
... I needed a knife and a strip of linen.

“No!” The old man gripped my wrist. “I forbid it! I need to tell you—”

“But I can heal you,” I said. “The power is in me.” Even as I spoke I gathered power . . . from my

fear . . . from the bitter winter . . . from the pain and awe and terror of my vision. I just needed to make

the link. . . .

“No use. No time.” His voice was harsh and low, broken with strident breaths. “Listen to me. They

have the child.”

“What child? Why—?”

“No time . . . everything is changed. Your only task . . . find the child. Save him. Only one . . . only

one can help. . . .” His words came ragged . . . desperate . . . “Bareil . . . your guide . . .”

“Who’s done this to you?” I would not listen to words that rang so of finality. “Tell me who.” And

when I knew, that one would die.

“No, no, fool! Leave it be. If they take . . . boy to Zhev’Na, then . . . oh, curse it all... no time . . . the

only way . . .” He faltered, choking as blood bubbled out of the corner of his mouth. I thought he was

gone, but he snarled and forced the words past his clenched jaw. “If they take the boy to Zhev’Na, give

yourself ... to the Preceptorate.”

“But—”

“Go defenseless. Tell them . . . ready to be examined. Let it play out. The only way. The only way ...”

His cold hand touched my face tenderly, his voice sunk to a ferocious whisper, his eyes boring holes in

my own. “Dearest son, do
not
use the crystal. Not until you are whole, and you have the boy. Promise

me.”

“Dassine—”

“Promise me!” he bellowed, grabbing my robe and raising himself off the cushions.

“Yes, yes, I promise.”

He jerked his head and sagged onto the cushions, his eyelids heavy, the grip on my robe relaxing. I

did not beg or argue or rage about how little I understood. He had no strength to remedy my ignorance.

But his finger fluttered against my arm, and I bent close to hear him. With a sighing breath, he whispered,

“Trust me.” And then he breathed no more.

My friend, my mentor, my keeper. Without thought of Bridge or worlds or any of the larger

consequences of his passing, I held the old man in my arms until the sun was high. Though keeping vigil

with the dead for half a day was the Dar’Nethi custom, love, not custom, compelled me to stay with him.