Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (45 page)

wool robe, and padded barefoot down the stairs.

When I entered the low-ceilinged chamber, the circle of candles was already alight. The dark stone

columns and walls, void of decoration, seemed to swallow the candlelight.

“How is it you know of all this?” I said, waving my hand to encompass the luminous circle. Dassine

had always claimed that his work with me was unique, unknown to any other Dar’Nethi, that I must

follow his strictures if I ever wanted to be whole. Though Exeget’s lectorium was cool, deep in the rock

below Avonar, a drip of sweat trickled down my tailbone.

“This is not the time for questions. Take your place.” He held out his hand for my robe.

Self-conscious as I had never been with Dassine, I gave it over and sat myself naked on the bare

stone inside the circle.
Fool! Fool
! screamed my untrusting self.

Exeget tossed my robe onto the floor behind him with a snort, whether at my modesty or my fear, I

couldn’t tell. But as the light grew, insinuating itself into my head and my lungs and the pores of my flesh,

he spoke softly in my mind,
Do not be afraid. I’ll not allow you to drown
.

And so did I take up my life where it had been interrupted five days—or fifteen years—before, and

on that very night, in the room where Exeget had so often railed at me for being soft and stupid and

unworthy of my name, did I travel once again to the gracious house called Windham and meet my darling

Seri in the freshness of her wide-eyed young womanhood. Her awakening intelligence soared, and she

argued and laughed and studied, revealing to my Dar’Nethi soul a universe of marvels. We walked in her

cousin Martin’s gardens and played chess in his drawing rooms, and when the blazing hearth of Windham

faded into Exeget’s circle of candlelight, I cried out, “No! Let me go back! For love of the Creator, let

me go back.”

“A moment. Drink this; it will sustain you.” Someone poured some thick and sour liquid down my

throat, and before the blaze in my eyes had dissipated enough that I could see whose hands held the cup,

I was embracing the fire once again.

Every day a delight in her friendship, not daring to think of anything more. We all knew she was

meant for Evard and swore that such a marriage would be like confining the lightning to a cage. Martin

warned me that there could be no future for the affection and regard I tried so vigorously and so ineptly

to hide, for he knew my secret and the dangers it entailed. I was a sorcerer, doomed to run, to hide, and

almost certainly to burn.

How long did I journey that first time in Exeget’s room? Three more times was I drawn back to the

circle of fire, where I blindly gulped the murky liquid as a drowning man gulps air; three more times was I

sent back again to Leire, to the happiest days I had ever known. The fifth time I came back a voice

protested behind the roaring of the flames. “Enough, Master. You’ll kill him.”

“We’ll
all
be dead or worse if we cannot finish in time. But I suppose you’re right. We daren’t push it

farther at first. But things will get no easier as we go.”

Hands, two pairs of them, drew me to my feet and wrapped my robe about me. I could not yet see

for the blinding glare that filled my eyes, but as the two half walked, half carried me to my room, my

senses emerged from their muffling and began to record the world around me once again. A crashing

thunder growing in my ears could be traced to the tapping of a breeze-shifted branch on the window, the

searing colors that soon shredded my eyes were but the muted grays of Exeget’s halls, and the vicious

claws that must surely be raking bloody gashes in my arms were four gentle hands as they laid me on my

pallet.

“Quickly now, to sleep,” said the grating voice, and the hellish cacophony of my jangled senses was

deadened by the blessed touch of his hand.

In an hour, no more than two, they roused me to begin it all again.

Dassine’s regimen had been nothing compared to that of Exeget. I knew no day or night, no hour or

season, no word of comfort or argument, no words at all in that time. I did not eat, only drank the vile

mess that kept me living and embraced the darkness when they pulled me from the circle of fire, blind

and deaf and numb. I lived only as Karon, in the past, and, of course, it was not long until I understood

what horror awaited me beyond my knowing.

Dead. Oh, gods, my dear friends . . . Martin, Tanager, Julia ... I had left them to die because I would

not compromise my gift to alter the paths of fate. And my wife and son abandoned. I had abdicated my

responsibilities for some Dar’Nethi ideal and left Seri to face the horror all alone. The experience of my

own death, the relived torment and despair and the ten years of disembodied darkness were as nothing

beside my betrayal of my friends, my wife, and my child. And Dassine had brought me back because he

believed I had some holy revelation that could save the world. What kind of coward was I?

The candlelight faded; darkness and silence enshrouded me. Was the restoration of three lost

souls—those three pitiable Zhid I had healed after the fight with Seri’s brother at the Gate—worth

everything that had happened? I could see no other return from all the pain and sorrow.

Oh, Seri, forgive me. How I understand your anger . . .

“You cannot hide forever, D’Natheil. Three days it’s been since we completed our work.”

The room was dark, though not as dark as my soul. He spoke softly, as if unsure of the state of my

hearing. But I would not wake to Exeget. I burrowed back into emptiness.

The next time it was someone else. Hands rolled me to my back and stuffed pillows under my head.

“My lord Prince, you must live. You are so much needed. Here, drink this.” He pressed a cup into my

shaking hands and helped me lift it to my lips. Brandy, woody and old, the smoothest I had ever tasted,

yet I thought it might burn a hole through my empty stomach. I coughed and gagged and heaved, and my

invisible companion helped me to sit up straight. My skin was slick with sweat.

“Holy stars!” It seemed like half a month until I caught a breath.

“It is fine, is it not? My best vintage ever.”

“Bareil?”

“The same, my lord. May I make a light?”

“If it’s necessary.” With the glimmering candle flame came the intrusion of the world and all the

burdens I had shed in my days of oblivion. “Oh, gods, Bareil ...” I bent forward and dragged at my hair

with my fingers, as if enough pain might make reality vanish again.

“I know, my lord. It is difficult. I wish it could have been slower, easier for you.”

“You were there? You were the other hands?”

“Yes, my lord. Master Dassine had given Master Exeget a directive with which to summon me and

command my assistance. And when I saw what he was doing with you— completing Master Dassine’s

work—I was happy to be of service. I hope it did not contradict your wishes.”

“No.” I pushed shaggy, damp hair from my brow and felt several weeks’ growth of beard bristling on

my chin. “Thank you.”

“You must eat, even though you may not feel like it yet. I’ll bring something. I’ve scarcely managed to

get anything down you in all these weeks. And, my lord, Master Exeget is desperate to speak with you.

Though he asked me to wake you, he waits just outside.”

“Exeget . . .” What was I to think of him?

“It is astonishing, is it not? I was terrified when I saw you in his power. But my lord, I must tell you

that never was Master Dassine so careful in his work. I have watched many of the Dar’Nethi masters

work, and none other could have brought you through this as he did.”

“Give me an hour.”

Bareil bowed and left the room. Huddled in the corner of my pallet, I forced myself to consider the

state of the world. At what I guessed to be the precise expiration of my hour, the door opened and my

old enemy sat himself in the chair in the corner. He began examining his hands, turning them this way and

that in the weak light, showing no sign of agitation at my delay. He would sit so all night before confessing

his urgency.

“I don’t know whether to thank you or not,” I said, conceding the minor struggle in the hunger for

understanding.

His hands came to rest in his lap, one laid calmly upon the other. “I did what was necessary. I don’t

expect you to thank me. Upon full consideration, you will most likely decide this is only another crime to

add to my account.”

“You never told me what was to come after.”

“It would have made no sense at the time and may not yet. It depends on whether you were able to

analyze the present situation while you lived your life again or in these past days as you lay here in your

self-made tomb.”

“While I journeyed, I was wholly in the past. While I lay here, I was trying to bury it all again. But in

the hour just gone, I’ve put a few things together.”

“Do you understand about the child? Who he is?”

“Yes.” Seri’s son. My son.

“And you see that because of your . . . unique . . . circumstances—this thing Dassine has done to

you—your son is the next Heir of D’Arnath?”

“I guessed it.”

Exeget’s dark eyes blazed far brighter than my candle. “Do you have any concept of what it means if

the Heir comes of age in the hands of the Lords?”

“The Three will control the Bridge.”

“Not only the Bridge, but all the powers of D’Arnath. Only Dassine and I, of all Dar’Nethi, ever

grasped their full extent. D’Arnath was able to create the Bridge because he could manipulate the forces

of the Breach, forces which are the antithesis of order, the bits left over from the creation of worlds

because they were defective, too odd or corrupt or broken to be included in the weaving of the universe.

Before the Catastrophe, this corruption was dispersed, incohesive. But the workings of the Three, the

immense increases in power they believed they created by their superior cleverness, were in fact drawing

upon these broken bits and gathering them together, until, in their last disastrous working, the Breach was

formed and the corruption trapped within it.

“Only D’Arnath’s anointed Heir inherits his control over the Breach. One of our race at a time. The

universe cannot seem to support two with such power. And so, if the Lords corrupt the Heir and control

him—become one with him as they are one with each other—then, on the day he comes of age, they will

be able to command the legions of chaos. None will be able to stand against them.”

“The test of which you spoke with Madyalar—it is the test of parentage?”

“Yes. You are D’Natheil. Your blood and bone and spirit are indisputable witness to it. You are also

the father of the child. Your wife knows it; now you know it. He is Dar’Nethi. There is no other

possibility. He and this man Darzid were able to cross the Bridge. Do you understand what that requires?

Yes, the way was left open, but only the boy’s bloodlines—your own deeds in the mundane world bear

witness to unquestionably powerful bloodlines— and whatever gifts this Darzid brings to bear could

enable them to cross so easily. The man knows the boy is your son. We must assume he also knows

something of what has been done to you, for he has exposed his own abilities and sympathies in order to

bring the child to the Lords. Which means the Lords know the boy’s heritage, as well. If you and the boy

undergo the test of parentage before the Preceptorate, the boy will be proved the son of D’Arnath’s Heir

and must therefore be acknowledged as your successor.”

I fought my way through the confusion. “Then why—if you are indeed what you wish me to

believe—why, in the name of all that lives, did you return my memory? If you had left me the way I was,

or driven me mad with it—not a long or difficult road as you saw—or if you had killed me, the test of

parentage would fail.”

His shoulders relaxed a bit, and he sighed as will a teacher who has just heard the first rudimentary

evidence of progress from a recalcitrant student. “If no Heir is competent to sit for the test of his child or

to name a new successor, then the Preceptorate must decide whether there is some other living

descendant of D’Arnath. The only way to test a person is to send him or her onto the Bridge and see

what transpires. We cannot allow what happened to you when you were twelve to happen again. We

have no Dassine to make us a new and better man from a broken child. So we must keep both you and

your son whole if it is possible.”

How could this man be Exeget? Why had he not felt this way when I was a child?

Evidently he was still monitoring my thoughts. “I did not vote to send you onto the Bridge when you

came of age. Rather, I tried my best to stop it. There was no possibility you could survive the attempt.”

Nothing you believe is immutable. . .
. “Perhaps if I’d received better teaching.”

He waved a hand in dismissal. “I had to discover what you were. Many in Avonar said you were

touched by the Lords, destined, even at nine years of age, to be their tool. If you were, I had to know. If

you were not, then you would survive and be the stronger for it. My purpose was not to make you love

me.”

“And what was the truth?”

“I don’t know. You were sent to the Bridge at twelve, and it almost destroyed you. Your soul was

twisted beyond repair. My surmise is that the Lords had indeed reached you.”