Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (29 page)

evidence of the road, I might have believed we were the first to look on it.

Yet the longer we gazed, the more disturbing the quiet. No bird chirped; no insect buzzed. Nothing at

all dripped or trickled, hopped, or scurried. And somewhere just beyond the center of the valley was a

line of demarcation, straighter than anything nature could devise. Whatever lay beyond that line was dark

and indecipherable in the gray light. Uneasy, I turned to ask the others if they knew the place. Paulo,

Kellea, and Bareil were staring at Karon, who gazed unblinking on the valley, tears flowing freely down

his cheeks. And then I knew.

By more than twenty years he had outlived his family and his birthplace. Before I could speak, he

urged his mount forward, moving slowly down the hill.

As we followed Karon into the valley, we saw remnants of human habitation: stone houses overgrown

with brambles and dark windows like hollow black eyes, a lone chimney standing in a bramble thicket,

rotting fences, fields gone wild, roadside wells and springs so wickedly fouled that only black-and-green

sludge lay within twenty paces on any side. But these sights were benign compared to the view as we

passed beyond the barrier we had seen from the ridgetop.

A desolation of frozen mud, no remnant of twig or leaf or stubble saying that anything had ever grown

in these fields. A few stunted thistles poking through the crumbled highroad seemed to be the only living

things within a half a league of the city. Charred and broken towers stood starkly outlined against the

heavy clouds. Bare white walls rose from the center of the wasteland like the bleached bones of some

ancient beast. Everything dead. Everything destroyed. And lest one retain some hope that some remnant

of life had escaped their wrath, the destroyers had set tall poles to flank the gate towers, and upon each

one had strung a hundred heads or more—now reduced to bare skulls.

“Demonfire!” Paulo muttered under his breath.

Karon halted just outside the walls at the point where a faint track branched off from the main road.

His gaze remained fixed on the eyeless guardians. “Our destination is a small valley in the foothills beyond

the city,” he said softly. “I’m sure of it. But to make use of what we find there, I must go into the city.

Take this path outside the walls and wait for me where it meets the main road once again. I’ll join you as

soon as I can.”

“Let us ride with you,” I said. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

Bareil spoke at the same time. “I think I should be at your side, my lord.”

A rueful smile glanced across Karon’s face. “This is my home. I’ll see nothing I’ve not imagined a

thousand times over. Power awaits me in its contemplation, just as in those things I might prefer to look

on. Ours is a perverse gift.” He clucked to his mount, but immediately pulled up again, turning to Kellea.

“Come, if you wish. This was your home, too.”

Kellea wrenched her eyes from the grisly welcomers atop the poles. “My home was in Yurevan with

my grandmother. Horror holds no power for me.” But her cheeks were flushed, and she would not meet

Karon’s gaze.

“Don’t blame yourself that you’re not ready,” he said, “or even that you may never be. I believe it’s

taken me a very long time to come back here.” He spurred his horse toward the black gash in the wall

that would once have been the wooden gates.

The cold wind gusted across the barren fields as the rest of us rode around the mournful ruin. I rued

my angry words that had increased the distance between Karon and me. Long ago I had promised him

that I’d go with him to Avonar when he was ready, a promise lost in the past he did not yet own.

The leaden evening settled into night as we rounded the city’s eastern flank and picked up the road

again close to the boundary of the desolation. Once Kellea had made sure of the way, we dismounted to

stretch our legs. After only a brief wait, an agitated Bareil said he was going back. “He should not be

alone in such a place,” said the Dulcé. “Not in his fragile state.”

I touched his hand before he could mount up. “Let him be, Bareil. He said he could manage it. In this

. . .I think it’s important that we trust him.”

When the time had stretched far longer, I was on the verge of contradicting my own judgment.

But just as the first glimmer of the rising moon broke through scudding clouds beyond Karylis, the

weak light outlined a dark figure riding toward us at a gallop from the east gate of the dead city, such

urgency in his posture, I bade the others mount and be ready. In moments Karon shot through the

clearing where we waited, crying out, “Ride! We’re racing the moon!”

Half a league up the road, he turned north into a narrow vale. The moon danced in and out of the

clouds as we rode, revealing smooth slopes, broken by groves of slender trees and great boulders of

granite, tumbled and stacked atop each other. As we followed the faint track, the faithless moon was

swallowed by thickening clouds. Soon snowflakes stung my cheeks. We slowed to a walk in the

uncertain light. But a burst of enchantment swept over us, and the horses surged forward, sure-footed

again as if the way had been lit for them. After half an hour, perhaps a little more, Karon pulled up

suddenly, all the beasts halting at the same time. I had never even tightened the reins.

“Quickly,” Karon whispered as he dropped from his saddle, drawing us close as we did the same.

From his hand gleamed a faint light, revealing his face ruddy with the wind and the cold, his eyes shining.

“They’re just ahead of us. The enchantment requires the proper angle of the moon, so we’ve a chance to

take him. But you must be prepared to follow. Leave everything behind. Paulo, unsaddle the horses and

bid them wait in this valley. They’ll find grazing enough here, even in winter.” Paulo nodded and hurried

to do as he was asked, Bareil assisting him. Karon looked at Kellea, jerking his head to our right. “Does

your sense agree with me?”

“Yes. Up the hill.”

“Then follow me, quickly and quietly.”

As Paulo shoved the last saddle under a bush, tied our blankets tight over them, and patted the last

horse’s rump, we started up a gentle slope alongside the stream, rippling and bubbling in its half-frozen

shell. Karon let his light fade. Soon, from ahead of us, yellow light nickered from a triangular opening

formed by two massive slabs of granite set into the hillside. To the right of the doorway stood a riderless

horse, and to the other side was a pile of boulders.

Something about the place teased at my memory. Karon had once mentioned an incident with his

father. . . .

Karon gathered us together again, whispering, “We must draw them out here at least as far as the

opening. It’s too cramped to attack him inside—a risk to the boy. Count to ten, my lady, then call the

man out. Be convincing. I’ll take him from the left. You,” he said to Kellea, “be ready to grab the child.

Bareil and Paulo, help us where it’s needed most.” Without waiting to hear an acknowledgment, he

disappeared into the darkness.

When the interminable interval had passed, I stepped from the sheltering trees and stood before the

torchlit entry. “Darzid!” I called. “Bring him out. I know who he is. You can’t hide him.” My plea

sounded futile and stupid, even to me. “Please, just come and talk to me.”

“Our time for conversation passed many years ago, Lady.” His laughter rippled from inside the

doorway just as the moon broke through the clouds, its beams shooting straight through the opening in

the rock. The dim yellow light inside the cleft flared to eye-searing white, and every other sound was lost

in a low rumble like a buried waterfall. Earth and sky—a Gate to the Bridge!

“Karon!” I screamed.

The Breach between the worlds was a boundless chasm of nightmare and confusion, of the corrupted

bits and pieces left from the beginning of time, of horrific visions and mind-gnawing despair. Even if this

Gate was open, how could Darzid and Gerick survive the passage or pass the wards D’Ar-nath had

created to bar easy crossing? Only the Heir of D’Arnath could pass, so I had been told. Only the most

powerful of sorcerers could control the terrors of the Breach.

“Hurry! Stay close!” Karon shouted as he leaped from the boulder pile. Sprinting across the patch of

light, he disappeared through the doorway.

With Paulo, Bareil, and Kellea, I followed him through the cleft in the rock and down a brilliantly lit

passage toward a wall of white flame. Karon was barely visible beyond the blazing veil, moving rapidly

away from us. I hesitated. A few moments on the Bridge at Vittoir Eirit had almost destroyed my reason.

“He’ll shield us,” shouted Bareil over the roar of the fire. “Don’t be afraid.” The Dulcé took Paulo’s

hand in one of his; Paulo reached for Kellea; and together the three stepped through the curtain of fire.

With a fervent plea to any benevolent god that might take an interest, I followed.

Pits of fire and bottomless darkness yawned beside my feet. Murmurs, growls, wailing laments, and

monstrous roaring tore at my hearing. Shadowy figures took shape at my shoulders, one of them a

woman with rotting flesh. She flicked her tongue toward me—a tongue the length of my arm with

razor-sharp spikes.

My steps faltered; my hand flew to my mouth. A glance in any direction revealed horror in a thousand

variations. From the left an ocean of blood rose up in a towering wave, threatening to engulf my three

companions.

Kellea hesitated, shielding her eyes with one arm; Paulo flung his arms around her, ducking his head

into her shoulder.

“Look straight ahead!” shouted Bareil, urging them onward with his small hands. “Nothing will harm

you.”

A cobra with the girth of a tree towered over me, spreading its hood, its hiss like a finger of ice

caressing my spine. Shuddering, fighting my urge to retreat, I dragged my eyes from the vileness to either

side and fixed them in front of me.

A smooth band of white light stretched before us into the gloom, and as if his arms had reached out

and enfolded me, I felt the embrace of Karon’s protection. The wave of blood fell short. The spiked

tongue did not reach so far as my face. When a blood-chilling scream pierced the tumult, and a shrike

with a wingspan wider than my arms sailed toward us through the tempest, its hooked beak ready to tear

the flesh from our bones, the scream was quickly muted, and no horror touched us.

The journey seemed to take an eternity. But eventually, ragged and breathless, Bareil, Kellea, Paulo,

and I stepped through another fiery veil into a circular chamber of white and rose tiles. The ceiling was

lost in a soft white brilliance high over our heads. So familiar . . . yet I was enormously confused. I would

swear that we were standing in the Chamber of the Gate in the ancient mountain stronghold where Karon

had fought the Zhid and my brother had died. Why did we remain in the human world after traversing the

Bridge?

I whirled about in panic, only Bareil’s silencing gesture preventing my cry. Karon was nowhere in

sight.

In the far wall, a thick wooden door clicked shut softly. The Dulcé tiptoed across the empty chamber

and pulled open the door. Distant running footsteps echoed in the passage.

“He’s gone after them,” whispered Bareil, motioning us to hurry. “We must stay together and keep

close if we can do so without being seen.”

The passage emptied, not onto the gallery overlooking the cavern city of the lost stronghold, but into a

network of increasingly wider passageways—smooth stone walls, veined with vibrant yellows and blues,

softly lit by no source that we could see. Our direction was always up, though we traversed no steps, and

I felt no ache in my legs to tell me that the slope was anything but illusion.

Before very long, I heard no footsteps but our own. Bareil sighed and drew us into a sheltered

alcove. “Vasrin Creator,” he said, panting, “never has my heart pounded so. But we’ve lost them in spite

of it. Can you lead us?” he asked Kellea.

The girl shook her head in disgust. “You’d do better to ask Paulo. I’ve lost all sense of the boy since

we stepped past the fire. There’s . . . too much here. It’s as if someone dropped a bag over my head and

stuffed it with noise.”

“Well, we can either return to the Chamber of the Gate or proceed to a hiding place where D’Natheil

and I have agreed to meet if ever we are separated.”

No. No. No
. “No retreat,” I said, forcing my voice low, but firm. “Not until Gerick is safe.” Dread

weighed in my belly like an anvil.

“I agree,” said Kellea. “And I prefer a place that has more than one usable exit.”

The Dulcé nodded. “Very well. Then you must do exactly as I say. All right?” Though he wrinkled his

face seriously at Paulo, a smile danced in his almond-shaped eyes. “This place may seem strange.”

The boy shrugged and pulled down his hat. “I’ve been about. Seen lots of things lately nobody’d

believe.”

“We’ll not be remarked if we seem sure of ourselves and don’t gawk.” The Dulcé led our ragged

group through passageways and deserted kitchens and dusty storerooms to an iron gate. Past the gate

was a dimly lit, cloistered courtyard, the sheltered walkways lined by a double row of slender columns. A

few trees grew in garden beds, thick-branched evergreens with long needles, but of no variety I