Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (74 page)

“Indeed you have grown fairly, my lord,” said Madyalar, smiling. Ustele and Ce’Aret murmured their

agreement.

Gerick acknowledged the compliment with a gracious nod. “Clearly I am not Zhid, and it is one hour

past my coming of age. I am safe in the house of my friends, and my Preceptors are welcomed here. If

the Lords wished to corrupt me, then they have made a great miscalculation, have they not?”

“Who are you?” growled Gar’Dena. “Show us your true face. Show us your friends and prove that

they are the friends of Avonar.”

“What greater proof of loyalty is there than saving my life?” snapped Gerick. “My protectors did so

when I was an infant, condemned to death in the mundane world, and then they brought me to this haven

to shield me both from execution in the mundane world and the murderous traitors in Gondai. And they

saved me yet again this year when they discovered a foul plot that invaded this, my sanctuary. Some

thought to prevent my taking my place as the Heir, sneaking in here disguised as servants to steal me

away.” His finger pointed at me.

All of the Preceptors looked startled when they saw me. But two of the astonished faces registered

another emotion as well—distress, quickly suppressed. One of the two—Gar‘Dena’s—I expected, and

the other . . . the other I most assuredly did not. I did not trust myself even to think the name, for if what I

glimpsed was truth, then the implications were profound and dangerous.

“Oh, my lady—” began Gar’Dena.

“Master Gar—”

“Be silent in my presence, traitors!” spat Gerick. He whirled from me to the giant Dar’Nethi. “How

dare you speak when you have so violated my trust? My first act as Heir of D’Arnath will be to remove

you from this Preceptorate. I cannot trust anyone.” And then he glared at me in accusation. “No one ...

no one is who they seem. Everyone lies.”

Ustele, so bent and weathered that he looked like the ancient trees that clung to the windswept ridges

of the Dorian Wall, glanced about the room anxiously. “Are you saying this woman has tried to harm you,

Your Grace? With Gar’Dena’s connivance?”

“We know nothing of this,” said Ce’Aret, frowning. “We understood that your mother was caring for

you all these months.”

Y’Dan nodded, puzzled.

“Once we’re done here today, you may take Preceptor Gar’Dena and his spy with you back to

Avonar,” said Gerick. “I charge you particularly, Master Exeget. Question them and dispose of them as

you wish.”

“But my lord, she is your mother,” said Ce’Aret. “What harm—?”

“She is nothing to me! If she wanted honorable concourse, she would have presented herself to me in

an honorable manner . . . told me the truth ...”

Exeget bowed. “This is shocking news, Your Grace. Was the woman acting alone?”

Gerick turned his back to them. “Her conspirators are dead. I had them killed. All discovered. All

dead.”

Take me back to Avonar . . . conspirators ... I didn’t know what to say. In an instant, everything was

uncertain. But my eye was on the Preceptor I had noted before. There it was again. Sorrow ... so brief.

Devastation. He had waited for over a year and had brought with him whatever glimmer of hope he and

Gar’Dena had been able to maintain. But they didn’t need to see the gold mask to know we had failed.

“My lord,” said Madyalar, soothing. “Let us proceed with our business so we may return to Avonar

and give your people the glorious news of their new hope. We have been without an Heir for too long.”

She urged her colleagues forward. “Come, you old fossils. The young Prince has come of age. He has

been proved.”

Why didn’t they see? Why didn’t they stop? I needed to warn them, yet something—enchantment,

uncertainty, caution?—kept me silent. Something else was happening here. I watched and waited.

Exeget motioned to the others to form a half-circle, and in his pale, manicured hand he held a small

round box made of gold. He removed its lid and stared at its contents. “Silestia,” he said. “It grows in

only one spot on the highest slopes of the Mountains of Light. The white flowers bloom only on

Midsummer’s Day, and it is said their fragrance fills the air for a league in any direction. From each

flower we can extract only a single drop of oil. So rare and precious is it that this tiny portion I carry is

the product of twelve years of gathering, since the last was used for young D’Natheil. To think—”

“We agreed we would perform no elaborate ritual,” snapped Madyalar. “Since this is a private

ceremony, there is no need.”

Exeget looked up. “Is that your wish, my lord?”

Gerick nodded, but seemed scarcely to be paying attention. He stood staring at me, his arms

wrapped tight about his stomach as if he were going to be sick.

“So be it,” said Exeget. “The heart of the rite is, of course, quite brief. In the mundane world, the

head of the ruler is anointed, and as the head rules the body, so does the king rule his subjects. But it is

the hands of D’Arnath’s Heir that are anointed, for the hands serve the body, supply its sustenance,

defend it, build up the works of beauty that its soul creates. So does the Heir serve his people, sustain

them, defend them, and exemplify and encourage the beauty they create. We do not know you, young

Prince, yet we must entrust you with this responsibility. Some among us say we should wait and judge

your worthiness, to learn of your protectors and your schooling to be sure you are the Prince we believe.

But I am the head of the Preceptorate, and I say we know enough.”

Exeget dipped his finger into the gold case. Madyalar, Ce’Aret, Ustele, and Y’Dan knelt before

Gerick. Gar’Dena had turned his broad back, sheathed in red satin, to all of us, his shoulders quivering. I

believed he was weeping. But tears would do no good. Gar’Dena should be crying out a warning.

Madyalar and the others didn’t understand the truth. Why was he silent?

Exeget reached for Gerick’s extended hand. “Great Vasrin, Creator and Shaper of the universe,

stand witness. . . .”

I couldn’t believe he was going to go through with it. Exeget surely knew the identity of Gerick’s

“protectors,” but I no longer believed he was a traitor. Exeget’s face had blanched along with

Gar’Dena’s when he saw me revealed, and Exeget’s expression had shown defeat when he heard my

allies were dead. He could not allow Gerick to become the anointed Heir. Madness and frustration

boiled in my heart . . . until Exeget glanced at me . . . and I knew . . .
Earth and sky
! They were going to

kill him.

“Exeget, do not!” As if my own voice had burst forth in an unaccustomed timbre, a shout rang out,

echoing on stone walls and dark columns and glass floor hidden behind this seeming of a room. Deep and

commanding, that voice pierced my cold heart like a lance of fire. “Neither anointing him nor

assassinating him accomplishes any purpose whatsoever—not while I live free.”

A man appeared at one end of the room as if he had parted the plastered walls and stepped through.

Tall and lean, his sun-darkened skin ridged with scars, he wore the collar, gray tunic, and cropped hair of

a slave and the face of D’Natheil. One glance told me everything necessary. Recognition, completion,

understanding ... he was Karon my beloved. He was whole. I clasped his unspoken greeting as a starving

child holds her bread.

Exeget lowered his hand and bowed to his prince, the corners of his mouth twitching upward in a

half-smile, transforming . . . illuminating his proud face. “Never have I been so happy to see a failed pupil,

my lord.”

Gar’Dena whirled about with speed and agility unexpected for one of his girth. “My good lord!”

“V’Saro,” whispered Gerick, staring at Karon. “They said my servants were dead. I commanded it ...

before I listened to you . . . before I knew. . . .”

The remaining Preceptors looked from Exeget to Karon to Gerick, bewildered ... except for

Madyalar who stepped protectively toward Gerick. Now I saw the puzzle solving itself.

“What treachery is this?” boomed the voice of Ziddari from every direction at once, echoing through

the light and shadows, causing the floor to shudder, the homely room to seem fragile and false, and joy,

relief, and hope of no more durance than dew in the desert. “How comes this slave here?”

“The anointing must proceed,” said the voice of the woman, Notole. “Why do you pause in this most

important duty? Continue.”

“Did you not hear, mighty Lords?” said Exeget, closing the lid of the gold case with a snap.

“Anointing this boy accomplishes nothing. You may bathe him in the oil of silestia, but it will gain him no

power. The anointed Heir of D’Arnath yet lives in Gondai, in full possession of his power, and before

you can make an Heir of your own, you must deal with him.”

“D’Natheil is decaying in his grave,” shouted Parven. “No impostor will delay our triumph.” The air

grew heavy with anger . . . with danger. . . . The lamplight dimmed.

“I would recommend that you get back through the portal, good Preceptors,” said Karon, waving

Y’Dan and the two old ones toward Gar’Dena and Exeget. He approached Gerick slowly, locking our

son’s empty face in his gaze while he called over his shoulder. “Can you hold the way long enough to get

all of us out, Master Exeget?”

“You will have to hurry, my lord. A moment’s earlier arrival and I would have been able to serve you

better.” Exeget’s puffy face had crumpled into a gray ruin, as if time had leaped forward fifty years. But

the Preceptor raised his clenched fists and closed his eyes. The rectangular doorway appeared in the

shivering air. “Ce’Aret, Ustele, hurry,” he said, gasping. “Y’Dan, Gar’Dena my brother . . .”

Gar’Dena shoved the Preceptors through the portal one by one. “My lady!” he called, gesturing for

me to come. But I could not go. Not yet.

Karon gazed down at Gerick. “You must come with us.”

“Why? So you can execute me?”

“To set you free. You don’t belong here.”

“You’re wrong.” And Gerick let his false image dissolve and with it the walls and the hearth and the

trappings of ordinary life. He stood in the stark, black hall of the Lords, his truth revealed, his diamond

eyes glittering in the darkness. “There is no going back, even if I wanted. This is exactly where I belong.”

Karon did not flinch or falter. “It doesn’t matter. Not even this. Nothing . . .
nothing
... is irrevocable.

I, of all men, can bear witness to that. Come with us who care for you.”

“I’ve freed the woman,” said Gerick, folding his arms across his breast. “Take her away quickly or

I’ll end up killing you both.” Then he turned his back on us and walked slowly toward the dais where the

black thrones sat vacant.

From the opposite end of the hall where a tall, wide doorway broke the line of the colonnade, running

footsteps entered the vast chamber. “My lord,” cried a familiar voice, echoing in the empty vastness.

“Three Zhid warriors right behind me!” A youth wearing Drudge’s garb burst through the gaping door,

his arms laden with belts and scabbards bristling with swords and knives. He sped across the black,

mirrored floor into the light, shooting me a cheerful grin. “We’ve come to rescue you.”

Paulo dumped his bundle of armaments on the floor beside Karon. “I come by these from the guards’

stores. Thought you might have need.”

Karon wrenched his gaze from Gerick’s back and smiled at Paulo. “You are irreplaceable, my

friend.” Dragging a sword and a knife from the tangle, he took up a position between the door Paulo had

just entered and the portal where Gar’Dena was disappearing into the council chamber.

“Does the young master have a sword on him—or might he want this one?” Paulo called after Karon,

pulling a blade from the pile and gesturing at Gerick’s back.

“I don’t think he needs one. You and Seri, get through the portal. I’ll wait for Gerick.” His gaze

embraced me, and he waved his sword toward the enchanted doorway. “Go. I’ll bring him. I promise.”

But before I could convince myself to leave, a nauseating wave of dark power pulsed through the vast

chamber. With a thunderous boom, the portal vanished. Exeget cried out and slumped to the floor. The

little gold case of silestia fell out of his hand, clattering across the dark surface. At the same time, three

Zhid warriors burst from the far end of the room, swords drawn and Karon stepped forward to meet

them.

While Paulo, hands on his waist, looked uncertainly from Karon to Gerick and back again, I ran to

the fallen sorcerer. “Can I help you, Preceptor?” I asked, searching for some wound or hurt to ease.

Sitting with his head drooped between his knees, he was bleeding from his mouth and nose, and

wheezing like unoiled bellows.

“Too late.” After carefully wiping his fingers on his robe, he held up his right hand. One of his fingers

was black. “Unfortunate timing . . . for me, but fortunate for the Prince and the boy. At least the Lords

will have nothing left of me to examine should they triumph in the end.”

“You were the one who told me to be silent and not to be afraid.”

Even in his mortal distress, the sorcerer managed a sly half-smile. “Dassine said you were the key to

everything. May you find strength to finish it. We owe you”—he coughed and fought for breath, flailing

his hand until he caught my own in an iron grip—“trust you ... if all fails ... you must finish . . . for the