Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (69 page)

... to the stables . . . hide there.”

But she didn’t run. I felt her arms wrap around me, and her wet cheek pressed to my face. “I would

not trade this moment for a thousand years of safety.” She brushed her fingers over my eyes. “Hold fast,

Gerick. Look deep inside. You are strong and beautiful and good, and you know what is important. You

are not what you believe. Don’t let them convince you.”

Boots pounded on the stair. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve got to—”

“Do whatever you have to do.”

I took her arm, and as gently as I could, I twisted it behind her. Then I let a surge of anger drown

everything else that was in my head. I had to protect her. And the only way to do so was to turn her over

to the Lords. Any other course would have been far more dangerous for both of us.

“Young Lord!”

“I’ve got her. She was sneaking up on me. I was practicing reading thoughts while I went to sleep,

and I found her.”

“Lady Seriana,” said Ziddari—Darzid, of course. I could feel it in his voice. She didn’t know Darzid

was one of the Three. He never came to my house as Ziddari, never let slaves or Drudges see his true

form. “A pleasure, and considerable surprise, to see you again. But you have certainly come down in the

world. I wouldn’t think of Drudges as your sort at all. They can hardly provide the intellectual stimulation

to which you have been accustomed.”

She didn’t say anything.

“What did you plan to do here, lady? Steal away a sleeping boy? Persuade him that you are a caring

mother? Convince him to abandon his destiny? A powerful thing is vengeance, is it not, young Lord? So

powerful it can make a woman destroy her child’s future because he’s sworn a blood oath to destroy her

dead lover’s kingdom. Ugly, ugly.”

“Only one person in this room would I destroy, but it is not Gerick. I’ve seen what you’re trying to do

with him. ...” I thought I had felt anger before. But my mother’s fury made even the power of the Lords

seem small.

Darzid didn’t hear it, of course, and I began to understand why they hated her so much. They didn’t

understand her. “You underestimate the lad, my lady. We’ve done nothing but allow him to develop his

true nature. He knows that and accepts it. Now, the young Lord needs to sleep. You’ll have plenty of

time to explain yourself . . . how you got here and who your allies are.”

Sometimes the Lords really thought I was stupid. They would learn. “Remember, she’s mine,” I said,

as I stumbled over to my bed and threw myself on it. “I’ve sworn an oath, and I’ll not have her taken

from me. Perhaps I’ll have a chance for personal vengeance after all.”

Darzid began to laugh. “Of course! Fortune has smiled on you once again, my Prince. You can

indeed have everything you desire.”

I slept for a full day. When I woke, the Lords were waiting for me . . . hovering . . . anxious. I was

anxious, too, and only felt better when I saw the faint smear of gray that was the torch that burned on my

balcony at night. If I worked at it hard enough, I could sense the faint outlines of doors and tables and

such in the blackness.

And how are you this evening, young Lord
? asked Ziddari.

“Hungry,” I said.

They relaxed a bit.
Slaves can bring you what you need
. Notole was everywhere inside me and

around me.

“I’ve already summoned them. But that won’t be enough. I’m hungry for other things than food. Do I

come to you again tonight?”

No, young Lord
, she said, pleased.
In four days you may have all you want. Only if your craving

should become unbearable would I consider taking you out again before your anointing. For now

you should resume your physical training
.

“What have you done with Seri?” I tried to ask it casually.

The lady is quite safe and healthy. We’ve asked her some questions, but she has few answers. A

traitor brought her to Zhev’Na, but he is dead now. They planned to destroy you, young Lord, to

steal your future . . . your power . . . to confine you to Dar’Nethi groveling . . . to starve you . . .

But their pitiful conspiracy failed long ago.

“Good.”

Rest easy. Determine your future with no worries that any enemy will interfere. Do you wish to

question the woman yourself
? The last question was from Ziddari.

“No. I’ve no interest in lies. She confuses me.” Yes. That was what they wanted to hear.

Then we’ll leave you to your own occupations.

And so I had to figure out what I wanted. The decision had seemed easy before, and now Seri had

muddled everything. My thoughts kept running in circles, and I couldn’t decide what I believed, or why I

had done the things I’d done, or what I was going to do about any of it.

I jumped up and fumbled about the room, gathering up Seri’s “gifts.” Out on the balcony, I burned

the map of the Leiran stars and threw the stone and the wood and the fruit pit as far away as I could. I

fingered the mirror, happy I couldn’t see well enough to know how my eyes looked this time. All black, I

guessed. Even reflected light made me wince. I pulled the wood away from the metal and burned it, and

then I melted the metal into a lump and threw it away, too. Grabbing my cloak, I felt my way down the

stairs.

There were guards everywhere in my house. I told them I was going riding in the desert and

threatened to tear out their eyes if they tried to stop me or even let their thoughts dwell on what I did.

After a quick stop by the kitchen, I set out for the stables. Summoning up what little power I had, I used

it to help me find familiar landmarks. I put out the stable lantern, made it to Firebreather’s stall without

breaking my neck, and sat down to wait. Firebreather shied away from me until I’d talked to him a little.

But it wasn’t for the horse I’d come.

“Awful dark in here.”

“Leave it that way. I’d just rather tonight.”

“Whatever you say.”

“I brought you some food, there in the pack by the gate. Sorry, no jack.”

“I told you I’m not choosy.” I heard him rummaging in the pack and then settling down in the straw.

“You’re in a bother,” he said between bites.

“Have you started reading human thoughts as well as horses‘?”

“Don’t take a genius. You’re sitting here in the dark. You forgot to yell at me for anything. You

brought me food without me acting pitiful or nothing. You’re not thinking straight.”

“I needed to talk, and I get tired of talking to myself. I argue one way, and it sounds right and

reasonable, and then I turn around and argue exactly the opposite, and it sounds just the same.”

“I’ve seen it. Means you think too much.”

“It’s about those things I told you of. The stone and such that appeared in my house.”

“Did you find another one?”

“Yes. And I found out who did it.”

The silence stretched so long, I began to think he’d gone to sleep. “Blazes,” he said at last. “Who was

it?”

“My mother.”

Another long silence, and then a totally unexpected question. “Is she all right?”

“No. Not all right at all—”

From out of the darkness a body pounced on me and pinned me to the floor, leaving me spitting

straw and with both my arms twisted behind me. His elbow encircled my neck. “Damnation, you didn’t

kill her? If you killed her, you are dead this instant. I don’t care whose friend you are, or how great a

sorcerer you are, I’ll break your neck. Don’t think I can’t do it.”

He was wild and furious, and I almost believed he
could
do it. “She’s not dead. Just a prisoner. How

do you—? Let me up. I won’t hurt you. I swear I won’t. Damn, you know her! You came here with her,

didn’t you?” I twisted around and shoved him off me. Then I felt my way back to the wall, sat up, and

brushed the straw off my face.

“I came just after. She don’t know I’m here. But I’ve promised— Curse every bit of this place. I’ve

promised— Oh, shit, shit, shit!” I hoped he hadn’t broken his fist when he slammed it into the wall of the

horse box.

“Why did you come here? Why did
she
come here? Don’t lie to me.”

“We came to get you. To take you back.”

“To destroy me?”

“Destroy you? Why in the name of perdition would the Lady Seri want to hurt you? She grieved

herself to death for you and your da for all those years, living in Dunfarrie where there was only such as

me for company, and the very day she figures out who you are, you get snatched out from under her

nose. She picks up and chases you through the mountains in the winter, and to a new world where she’s

like to get herself killed, then follows you into this cursed place, and you think she wants to hurt you?”

“She wanted vengeance on her brother. She didn’t know I was her son.”

“It’s true she didn’t at first. She didn’t want to stay at Comigor, but do you know why she did?

Because everyone thought you were loony. She wanted to help you because she loved her brother, but

she came to love you, too. She only put all the clues together after you was gone. She about went crazy.”

“That’s not right. She brought Prince D’Natheil to Comigor to kill me, and Lucy, and Mama’s baby

... for her revenge.”

“The Prince was getting his head put back together. He’d been half crazy for months. He didn’t even

remember she was his wife until that day in the council chamber. He couldn’t look at her without his head

trying to bust open. Don’t you know anything? I know . . . knew . . . the Prince, and he never ever would

kill an old lady or a child, whether it was his own or not. He never would. You don’t know what all he

did for me who was an ignorant nobody he’d no reason to look at, much less care for.”

My head was about to twist inside out with the confusion. “He killed my father . . . Tomas . . . the

man I believed to be my father.”

“It was Zhid magic what killed Duke Tomas.”

“How do you know? Why do you think anyone would tell you the truth?”

“Nobody told me nothing. I was there. I saw it.”

This was impossible. “I don’t believe you.”

“Look in my head. Can’t you tell what’s real and what somebody planted there? What good is all this

sorcery if you can’t figure out when a person is telling you the truth?”

“I could tell.”

“Then do it. We’ve got to save the Lady Seri. I owe her and the Prince most everything, and to stop

me trying to save her, you’ll have to kill me first, so you’d best get on with it.”

I fumbled about in the dark until I found his head, and I put my hands on the sides of it and told him to

think of anything he wanted to tell me. Only that. By the time I pulled my hands away, I knew everything

the Leiran boy knew from the time he first met Seri in Dunfarrie until the day my father, the Prince, had

slit himself open so I couldn’t be corrupted by killing him. The Leiran boy wouldn’t tell me anything

else—about how he got to Zhev’Na or how they planned to get me out. He wouldn’t think about the

Prince, except how kind he was, and how he just couldn’t believe the man was really dead. But it was

enough, and I could look no further anyway. Never had any injury hurt so much as the truth.

“Hey, are you all right?”

I couldn’t answer him. It was not all right. It could never be all right. I was able to add so many things

he couldn’t know. The Lords were going to win. They had made me into what they wanted, and now I’d

given them the very piece that would ensure their victory—a hold on me. They hated my mother as much

as they hated the Prince. Maybe more. I almost laughed. I’d been wrong about every single thing in my

whole life, blind long before my evil starting eating my eyes away. The Leiran boy had seen so clearly. He

had asked how I could think the Prince had killed Lucy when I had only seen his knife in my dreams. But

Darzid had twisted my dreams from the beginning.

A rustling in the straw. The Leiran boy had gone. Just as well. I would most likely betray him, too.

But before I realized what was happening, a smear of light appeared in the horse box. I turned away, but

not quickly enough.

“Blazing demons!” He pulled my face back around. “What did they do to you?”

I shoved him backward. “It’ll go away.” But it wouldn’t. Not ever.

“Does it hurt?”

“No. I just can’t see very well right now.”

“Damn! So did you get the story out of me?”

“Yes.”

“And you believe me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, what are we going to do?”

“I’ll have to get her. I think I can do it. Then I’ll try to get you both out of Zhev’Na.”

“And you, too.”

“That won’t be possible.”

“She won’t go without you.”

“There’s no other way. They’ll kill her unless I do what they want. They may kill her anyway, but I’ll

try.”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Obviously not as well as I would like.” Otherwise my mother would not be Ziddari’s prisoner.

Wrong about everything. Stupid. Worthless. Wicked
.

“I mean, if I were to tell you something right now that might help ... it wouldn’t go straight to the

Lords, now would it?”

“They don’t know about you.” At least I’d managed that much.

“What if there was someone else in Zhev’Na who could help you?”

“I don’t think there’s anyone who could possibly—”

“I know you don’t think nobody can do anything but you, but this person . . . he’d like to help. And