Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (44 page)

compelled to answer.

No.

Madyalar’s eyes widened.
Not restored . . . How much of your memory is yet missing
?

A great deal is yet missing.

She proceeded to question me about many things: about Avonar, about my family, about Dassine and

the Preceptorate and the life of the Dar’Nethi. Some things I knew. More I did not. It would have been

clear to anyone that I was profoundly confused and dreadfully incomplete. No one would have called me

mad, but of course she hadn’t gotten to the heart of the matter as yet. She was shaking her head in

exasperation at my lack of information, and she blurted out her opinion with her audible voice. “You’re

no more than a child, scarcely past infancy. Do you even know your own name?”

She must have sensed the ambivalence her question evoked in me, for she narrowed her gray eyes

and blasted her question directly into my head.
Tell me . . . what is your true name
?

I knew what I should answer, even lost in the smoky haze and the fierce compulsions of the potion

she had given me. If the purpose of the examination was to legitimize my position, then only one answer

would do. But under the influence of manglyth, it was not possible to speak anything but the most

absolute truth.
My name is Karon, eldest son of the Baron Mandille, Lord of Avonar, and his wife

Nesei, a Singer
.

She jumped up from her chair.
What are you saying? Where is D’Natheil, Heir of D’Arnath
?

And of course, I couldn’t lie about that either.
I am D’Natheil, Prince of Avonar, Heir of

D’Arnath
.

How is this possible? Have you put an enchantment on yourself so that you can lie?

I do not lie, and I do not know how it is possible.

Who is this Mandille? We have no barons in Avonar.

My father inherited the title of baron and the sign of the ruler from his father, Bertrand. The

title Baron, Lord of Avonar, was granted by order of King Dagobert of Valleor.

These names have no meaning to me. Was D’Marte not your father? Is Mandille another name

for D’Marte?

D’Marte was my father. D’Marte and. Mandille were not the same man.

This is madness. How can you have two fathers?

And that, of course, brought me to the familiar ground at the edge of the precipice.
Gods save me, I

do not know how it is possible
.

Are you the Heir or are you not?

I am the true Heir of D’Arnath
. Hold onto that, I told myself, until the cracks in the world

disappear.

On and on she went, discovering everything I knew of my two lives, of the Preceptorate, of Dassine’s

work, and his murder. She constantly returned to questions about conspiracies of which I knew nothing,

and of what I had done to preserve the Bridge in the human world, which I could not remember, and

how I’d come to believe I was two persons. Each time she pushed me to the edge, I wanted to scream

at her to stop before I lost my mind.

So you truly do not know how you
—
this Karon of Avonar, an Exile
—
first met with Dassine,

or when
?

No.

Perhaps Dassine was able to cross the Bridge to find you.

Astonishing that you don’t know. Perhaps the real D’Natheil was killed four months ago, and

Dassine has mind-altered an impostor. . . . No, I would see that. Perhaps you are D’Natheil, but

truly mad.

“Fires of chaos!” As her words erupted into audible speech, she kicked aside a basket of cillia

branches and stood glaring down at me, the dried pods, leaves, and twigs left in an untidy heap.

“Insupportable! The beast and his ‘private information.’ ” While I sat groggy, paralyzed, and half crazed,

she waved her hands and yelled at me as if I were yet a third person who understood her anger. “He

thinks to squeeze me out of this matter of the boy, and every time I get the upper hand, he laughs at me, I

chance to hear news of his meeting with Dassine, but arrive too late to hear anything worthwhile. And

now I’m given the opportunity to become an equal partner, only to discover that my prize is a madman

who believes he is two persons at once, who can tell me nothing of the boy, nothing of the one called

Darzid, nothing of why the two of them were rushed to Zhev’Na. And the only way to discover the truth

is to bring in the very one I detest. Damn! Damn! Damn!”

Her irritation reduced to snarls and muttering, she flopped back into her chair and picked a small blue

summoning stone from a bowl of them that sat on the table. A flick of her eyes, a mumbled word, and a

press of her fingers, and she dropped the thumb-sized stone into the bowl of flame, where it cracked and

sizzled and disappeared. Then she threw the bowl of blue stones across the room, creating a noisy

shower of broken pottery and clattering pebbles on the tile floor. The last was
not
a part of the

summoning enchantment. Drumming her fingers on the table, she glared at me through the thinning smoke

as if I’d made the mess. She tossed another handful of the gray powder on the flames and waved the

smoke my way. “A few moments’ delay,” she said, sourly. “You can be sure he’ll be quick.”

Only slowly did the complexities of her monologue sink into my fogged mind. But sink in they did, so

that by the time her smirking partner/rival walked in, I knew it would be Exeget.

Had anyone ever been such a fool? If I could have summoned enough sense to feel anything, I would

have been terrified. My mind open to Exeget . . . For three brutal years of my childhood, I had resisted

him, and now, in the space of an hour, I had yielded the control he had always craved.

“Difficulties, you say? A single Preceptor attempting to examine the Heir—I would expect nothing

else.”
Gloating
would not be an exaggerated description of his demeanor.

Madyalar was spitting like a cat, but my mysteries were evidently compelling enough for her to put up

with him. “I’ve never known anyone capable of untruth while under the influence of manglyth, yet the

answers he gives are not possible.”

“What has he said that is impossible?”

“That he is two persons at once, both D’Natheil and an Exile!”

“Vasrin’s hand . . .” he said, softly. Never had I known Exeget to lose control far enough to swear,

even in such mild form.

And so, we went through it all again. Exeget was an immensely more perceptive and precise

interrogator, and, having been my mentor, he knew how to probe deep and touch the most private self . .

. but only that of D’Natheil. He didn’t know Karon at all.

By the time he was done with me, I was half insensible, able to grasp only bits and pieces of their

discussion. Madyalar and Exeget had made some accommodation with the Lords of Zhev’Na. The boy

had somehow changed the equation. Something I’d told Exeget had made clear to him why the child was

important. Madyalar was frantic to know, as was I, but I could not stay awake long enough to hear it.

For whatever reason—perhaps in exchange for knowledge of his great discovery—Madyalar

released me into Exeget’s custody. Muddleheaded and nauseated from manglyth, smoke, and the bile of

self-recrimination, I was half carried, half dragged through passages and cold air and a portal. At last I

was deposited on a pallet that was too short for me. One bleary-eyed glance told me that I lay in the

same room where I’d slept for three of the most wretched years of a sorry childhood. Exeget’s

house—the Precept House of the Dar’Nethi. And yet, as I collapsed into complete insensibility, a soft

and not unkind voice spoke in my head.
Sleep well, my lord Prince. You’ll need it
.

CHAPTER 25

The bed felt like plate armor, and I was tangled in a choking knot of clothes and blankets, yet I was

not at all inclined to move. If I stayed very still, then perhaps these slight pricks of wakefulness would dull

into oblivion, and I could sleep the day around. Across my mind flitted the anxious notion that Dassine

would soon shake my shoulder, but even after I dismissed that fantasy, the whisper of his name in my

half-sleep pulled me from the domain of dreams across the border to the land of waking. Dassine was a

week dead. But someone was in the room with me. I could sense his breath, his pulse, the faint warmth

and disturbance in the air that told me another living person was present.

“Come, come, D’Natheil, you’re too big to hide from me any more. You were never good at it.”

Was my lethargy a result of his enchantments?

“More likely the residue of the cennethar. You are free to move and speak as you wish. You will

excuse me if I keep a slight watch on your thoughts, however. Your first impulse has always been to

violence.” One might have thought he was biting down on a nettle.

I sat up. The puffy-faced man with thinning hair sat in the small, bare room’s only chair. He rested his

chin on one of his perfectly manicured hands and smiled, an expression as void of mirth as the room was

of comfort.

“Who would have thought we’d be back here together?” he said. “Yet, you’re not really the one I

knew, the incorrigible little beast who spat upon the most glorious heritage in the history of all worlds.

You are someone else entirely.”

“That child still lives in me, and I remember everything of his time in your charge.”

“How do you know that the memory Dassine returned to you is accurate? Perhaps he colored what

he gave you with his view of the world and of me.”

“No, Preceptor. I lived every moment of those years twice over. I knew Dassine as I’ll never know

any other man, and he didn’t hate you half so much as I do.”

“Yet hate is quite alien to your present nature. How do you reconcile it?”

Search as I would, I could find no answer to that.

“As I thought. A difficult portion Dassine has left you.” He tapped his fingertips together rapidly.

“Well, look at it this way: You were a child, and there were—and are— many things you don’t

understand. If you are to survive what is to come, you must put aside your childish view. You must

accept that nothing—nothing—you believe is immutable.”

“And what is to come?”

“First I’ll let you eat and refresh yourself a bit”—he nodded to the boxlike table where sat a tray

laden with food, drink, a pile of towels, and a green porcelain basin from which steam was rising—“and

then I will restore the remainder of your lost life. Unfortunately events do not leave us the time Dassine

had. We shall have to proceed a bit more brutally . . . and
not
because I will enjoy it.”

“And if I refuse?”

He leaned forward, his cheeks flushed ever so slightly, his narrow eyes alight. “I saw your struggle

when we pushed you to the boundaries of your knowledge. However much you despise me, I cannot

believe you would refuse, even if you knew you would die in the next moment.”

He was almost right. “I would do anything to retrieve what I’ve lost except take it from Dassine’s

murderer.”

Exeget smiled scornfully and settled back in the hard little chair. “Have you unraveled nothing of this

mystery? I’ll not attempt to resolve for you the bothersome inconsistencies in your view of Dassine’s

death. But while I leave you to your refreshment, I want you to think about this: Dassine sent you to me.

Not to Madyalar, not to any of the others. You know Dassine chose words carefully:
Give yourself to

the Preceptorate for examination. Defenseless
. If your childish indignation had not been clouding your

judgment, only one possible course would have presented itself—surrendering to the Head of the

Preceptorate. To me.”

I dismissed his jibes as quickly as he left the room. But as I took full advantage of the hot water and

the mound of bread and cheese and cold meat, I could not but be drawn back to the most illogical aspect

of Dassine’s murder: Bareil knew nothing of the abducted child. Why would Exeget, intending to murder

Dassine, have given his rival information of significance? Ever convinced of his own superiority, Exeget

would not stoop to taunt a victim.

And, of course, his logic echoed my own uneasy thoughts, that I had interpreted Dassine’s command

according to my own desires . . . because I was afraid. . . .

Exeget returned an hour later, smirking at the broken crockery in the corner of my room. “So is it yea

or nay? Remember,
your
sanity is in question, not mine.”

I could not force myself to answer.

“Ahhh . . .” he growled. “When we are done, I’ll put your own knife in your hand and bare my neck

to you. Will that satisfy your bloodthirsty inclinations? Do we work at this or not?”

I jerked my head. He seemed to understand. “You’ll need this.” He tossed a white robe into my

hands, his composure regained. “When you’re ready, come to the lectorium. I’m sure you remember the

way.” Exeget, my despised enemy.

Yes, I remembered the way to the cold and barren workroom where he had tried so brutishly to

shove the practices of sorcery into my nine-year-old head. Muttering oaths, I stripped, donned the soft