Son of Avonar (58 page)

For hour after hour I forced D'Natheil to listen and to look me in the eye as I spoke. I did not stop when I heard Rowan walk across the stone paving, stand behind me for a few moments, and then leave again when it became clear there was no rescuing to be done. And I did not stop when D'Natheil cried out in anguish as the light beyond the sagging roof failed, and it looked as if everything we had gained was lost again. Instead, I touched his cold hand and felt the quivering tension as he fought to hold back the darkness . . . and as I held fast, the darkness enveloped me as well. . . .

Come, Lord Prince, freedom and power await. . . .
The whispers crawled up my back and between my shoulders, twining about my neck and ears, sending threads through my hair and wrapping cold fingers about my belly. . . . pricking my flesh and bone . . . pricks that became barbs that became spikes . . .
We can give you back what you have lost . . . come do us homage. . . .
Streaks of red, and green, and purple . . . mammoth dark-clad figures, seated on huge thrones of black stone . . . their massive heads turning to examine my soul . . . I was lost if they saw me. They had no faces . . . only streaks of light . . . ruby, emerald, amethyst . . . glittering facets . . . lurid light reflecting in a sea of black glass . . . nauseating light in a roiling, smoke-filled blackness . . . a storm of choking ash.
. . . else you are left as nothing, condemned to look back at all you are. . . .
And the void gaped before me like the maw of a monster, like the sky when the last star winks out. . . .

My head was cracking, my skin charring with a blazing heat, my stomach rebelling at the formless emptiness. “No!” I growled. Forcing my tongue to answer my command, forcing my eyes to stay open, I wrenched mind and tongue back to the stories . . . to life . . . to beauty. . . . The darkness receded, and it was only night, reality comprised of our linked hands and my voice, telling of laughter and sadness and courage and hope, like the tale of Errail the Gardener, who made his flowers bloom only one day longer each year, until after thirty years the other gardeners of Valleor feared their plants were failing, because they bloomed a full month less than those of Avonar. And so on through the night . . .

About the time I thought my voice and my supply of tales must fail, D'Natheil's hand grew warm, the suppressed trembling faded away, and his breath began to flow soft and even. Careful not to break his hold lest it wake him, I stretched my cramped legs and eased around to rest my aching back against the stone wall.

How many hours had I racked my brain for every scrap I could remember, so there would be no crack in the armor I built for him? The words could have been about things other than Avonar and the J'Ettanne, but I thought Karon's stories might have the most meaning.

The wind whispered about the hilltop. In the distance a night bird screeched. Impossible to sleep. I remembered my father returning to Comigor after a long campaign, day after day of riding, fighting, poor food, no sleep, so tired he couldn't even lift up my tiny mother and twirl her about as was his custom. My mother would urge him to go straight to bed and could never understand why he would sit up late in his study, drinking brandy and smoking his pipe and talking to any who would listen, saying he was too tired to sleep. Karon had been the same. Whenever he returned from one of his secret journeys, he would sit up late in the library or the garden, staring into the fire or the sky, saying he could not sleep until he had rested a while. Now I understood. I was beginning to understand so many things.

The sounds of horses and muted voices told me that Rowan had brought the others up the hill to be close. And before very long came footsteps and a quiet question. “Do you need anything?” It was Rowan.

“I would kiss the ground for a drink of anything,” I whispered, “and my cloak or blanket would not be unacceptable. One for him, too.”

“I've had to sit on the little fellow to keep him away. Should he come?”

“No. If you'll—”

“I'll take care of it.” The sheriff soon returned with two blankets and a wineskin. I had rarely tasted anything quite so delicious as Rowan's sour wine.

“Thank you, Sheriff. Tell Baglos that the Prince sleeps and that I believe all will be well with him.”

“Done.”

 

When the morning sun penetrated the ruined keep, I woke hearing lingering echoes of Karon's voice from my dreams.
Seri love,
he had called,
let me in
. My arm had burned, and I had felt his life flow through my veins as it had on the terrible day of his arrest, filling me, enriching me, forgiving me as I had at last forgiven him. My response to the dream had been quite vivid. When I realized I still clung to the Prince's hand, my cheeks grew hot, as if, even in sleep, he might somehow have shared this most intimate of stories.

D'Natheil slept peacefully, sprawled under the blanket Graeme Rowan had thrown over him. I hated to wake him, but events could not wait. We could not know how long the road to the Bridge might remain open. And, of course, I had to see if what I'd done had been enough. I carefully extracted my hand and climbed to my feet. “Well, my lord prince, are you going to sleep all day? You've led us a merry chase.”

He stirred slowly, and after a few moments, mumbled, “What? I didn't—” He sat up, rubbed his head, and peered about his desolate refuge. When his gaze came to me, it was filled with questions. “I don't remember coming here.”

“What do you remember?”

“The rain. Fire. I don't know. A jumble of things. Nothing clear.” His face was troubled.

“Come, let's find the others.”

While we walked the length of the ancient hall, I told him briefly what had happened. “. . . and so you left us during the storm in an attempt to draw the danger of the Zhid away from us. You thought you couldn't hold out against them, but you did.”

“Because of you, I think.”

“I've told you several times that such things are easier together. If your mentors taught you that in all of history there has been any battle won by one man alone, then they know no more of history than does Paulo. I suppose they taught you, too, that women are weak and must be constantly coddled and protected. Perhaps you should have taken lessons from your friends, the soldiers on the walls of Avonar. My father always said that a soldier's wife could make soup from sticks and swords from stones and could hold a citadel long after the warriors had given it up. Women make the . . .” But I never told him, because my voice trailed off into a prolonged coughing fit from the irritation of my throat.

“Perhaps you should give your voice a rest,” said the Prince, as he gave me a hand over the fallen roof beam. “Or you'll find yourself being dragged about by argumentative, flame-haired women, unable to say a word to deter them from having their way with you.”

I stopped and stared at him as he continued across the littered ruin toward the sounds of our friends. After a few steps he looked back and smiled at me as he had not smiled for many days. The beauty of his face brought joy to my heart, though in the morning light I could not fail to notice that he'd aged a good five years in the past two days. Strands of gray threaded his fair hair. The stubble on his face could not hide the deepening lines. Baglos would not be able to deny the change this time. What did it mean? Shoving aside a sudden disquiet, I hurried after him.

The others were camped just beyond the fallen guard tower. Baglos caught sight of us first, raced to D'Natheil, and bent his knee. “Oh, my lord, forgive me for my absence from your side. My duty called me, but these . . . our friends . . . called upon the command that you laid upon me to be led by”—he took a deep and wounded breath—“this mundane woman. And I did follow it. But I respectfully ask if that was your intent?”

“I redouble my command, Dulcé, and I've placed it on myself as well. You are my madrissé, who can lead me on the proper road and answer whatever I ask of you. But the Lady Seriana is my counselor, who must tell me what road to take and what questions I must ask.”

By the time I dealt with two more bouts of coughing, D'Natheil was eating his second bowl of Baglos's porridge. I wanted a drink of something hot to soothe my throat and was forced to resort to gestures to let the Dulcé know.

Graeme Rowan sat a short distance away on a remnant of a fallen wall, munching a hard biscuit. Kellea was sitting halfway down the hill with her back to the company. Gratefully, I took a cup of hot wine from Baglos and perched next to the sheriff.

“Good morning,” I said, croaking a bit.

“Good morning, madam.”

“Just Seri will do.”

“As you wish.” He cocked his head toward the Prince. “So, do I kneel to him?”

“He does not expect it.”

“It was awkward enough with you for so long. To know who you were and what you were accused of. And then Kellea, a sorcerer in the flesh. But she tells me that this one is a prince, and that he and his odd friend come from a land—a world—that is not this one we walk. Is it true?”

“Yes.”

“Hand of Annadis . . .” The hand that held his biscuit fell into his lap. For Rowan, I had learned, such a reaction was the equivalent of an earthquake.

“That realization was not much easier for me. Paulo is the only one who takes all of it in stride.”

The sheriff grimaced. “Paulo's life is naught but irrational events. And he talks with horses. Why would anything amaze him? He tells me you chose to keep him, rather than shove him off to a magistrate. I thank you for that.”

“You know I could never—”

“I thank you anyway. Folk busy saving the world oft-times fail to note illiterate boys.” He lifted the biscuit to his mouth again, pausing only long enough to add, “May I ask what was last night?”

My throat soothed with Baglos's wine, I told Rowan about the Seeking of the Zhid, and how D'Natheil thought he had to fight it alone so as not to endanger the rest of us. “What I did, just talking to him long enough, enabled him to grab an anchor in a world in which he was at sea. He used his own strength to deflect the attack. I thank you for your discretion.”

“I vow never to interfere where this sorcery business is involved.”

“You may find it less terrifying than you think.”

“Hmmph.” A skeptical grunt. “So, what now?”

“We must get him to the place they call the Gate, as Kellea told you, so he can do whatever he was sent here to do, avoiding the traps the Zhid and the traitors among his own people have set for him.”

“And do you know the way?”

“We have clues.” I told him of the journal, and the Writer, and the riddles.

“You're wagering the future of two worlds on four-hundred-fifty-year-old riddles written by a ten-year-old girl?” Rowan's sandy eyebrows looked to fly off his face.

“She only gave her father the idea. He wrote his clues interspersed with her riddles, then left the key to them in the form of a children's game.”

“Still sounds like hunting a bear with a stick.”

Rowan finished his biscuit and I my wine, watching Baglos bustling happily about with food and fire and pots. After a while Rowan said. “So the little one is his servant. He seems very devoted. Obedient . . . trustworthy.”

“Their relationship is much deeper than master and servant—a magical link of the mind. Baglos would have difficulty disobeying his commands, even if he wanted to. What about it?”

“Mmm . . . no matter. I just wasn't sure. Back in Yurevan—” He waved his last bite of biscuit in dismissal. “Naught, then.”

My cup empty, I was anxious to get on with the day. “Then let me introduce you, and we'll be off.”

The Prince was still eating voraciously. Paulo was attempting to match him bite for bite, but was falling behind.

“D'Natheil, I must introduce you to one whose honesty I've much maligned. He was pursuing us with only good intent. This is Graeme Rowan, whom I induced you to bash on the head out of my mistaken interpretation of events.”

The Prince looked up.

“Sheriff, this is D'Natheil—no, more properly His Grace D'Natheil, Prince of Avonar, Sovereign of Gondai, Heir of D'Arnath.” D'Natheil was still dressed in the clothing of a dead farmer, the same shabby shirt and breeches I had rifled from Jacopo's bins, but when he nodded his head, Rowan bowed to him, though I believed he had come to the meeting with no such intent.

“You're not a wicked villain, then?” asked the Prince solemnly, as he motioned Baglos to empty the last dregs of breakfast into his bowl, even while scooping the last bite into his mouth. “Not a heinous, hide-bound slave of corruption that parades under the name of the law?”

“A servant of justice and order, but no slave, and neither heinous nor hide-bound, I trust,” said Rowan, just as solemnly.

“But at least a surly, knavish rascal who cannot abide the possibility of rational discourse from a female, and who could likely not even recognize such a thing were it to pop up from a tankard of ale?”

Rowan shook his head emphatically. “I've learned my lesson on that score from several sources.”

I looked from one to the other and felt my cheeks grow hot. “What is this conspiracy, gentlemen? I lead this expedition, and I'll have no pompous men having secret understandings and uncivil attitudes. You've just met. How can you be conspiring already?” I threw up my hands and busied myself with smothering the fire, pointedly ignoring the two who burst out laughing at my discomfiture. But I felt a smile bubble up from deep inside me . . . from a place I had believed barren.

Baglos packed the last of his pots and bags and went with Paulo to collect the horses. Moments later, Baglos came running to D'Natheil in great agitation. “My lord, we cannot find your horse! We've had no luck at all in summoning him. Unless you can do something . . .”