Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (41 page)

enchantments. Let us help you. I know of many things—”

“Stay away from me!” said Karon, brandishing the knife. “When I can no longer hold, you’ll not want

to be within striking distance of this weapon.”

“Gerick . . . Your name was going to be Connor . . .Connor Martin Gervaise.” Though his gaze

remained affixed to Exeget and the other Preceptors, Karon spoke to our son with an urgency, intensity,

and tenderness that wrenched the heart. “I wanted to tell you about my friend Connor. I wanted to tell

you so many things, but there was no time. That was the worst part of dying ... to believe I would never

see you. And now beyond all wonder, we are together, but again . . . there is no time.”

Gerick spat at his feet. “Murderer! I’ve sworn a blood oath to destroy you for what you’ve done.”

Karon shook his head, his lean face sculpted in pain. “So much blood on my hands—holy gods, I

don’t deny it—but not that of which you accuse me. If only there was time”— he staggered backward a

small step—“I’m so sorry, Gerick. So sorry. Look at me . . . look deep and search for the truth.” Then

he closed his eyes, and with his trembling hands, my beloved plunged Exeget’s knife into his own belly.

“Karon! No!” I screamed, yanking at the iron grate as if to rip it from the mortar.

The chamber erupted in frenzy as Karon slumped to his knees. The giant Gar’Dena rushed forward

bellowing and gathered him in his brawny arms. His cry of grief shook the walls of the chamber. “Great

Vasrin, alter this path! What have we done? The Heir of D’Arnath is dead!” Madyalar and the two old

people screamed for guards and Healers, while Y’Dan slumped into his chair and laid his head on the

table, weeping.

Darzid stiffened and unsheathed his sword. Grabbing the wide-eyed Gerick, he backed away from

Karon and the Preceptors.

An expressionless Exeget watched the madness and did nothing.

Fate could not be so brutal, so unfair. “Why did you do it?” I sobbed, gripping the iron bars. “I could

have helped you. Oh, love, why? Why didn’t you wait for me?”

As if in echo of my words, there came a flutter in my head, a delicate brush of words. . . .
wait for

me
. . . . Then, in a moment of grace, my mind was filled with Karon, without pain, without fear, whole,

knowing everything of our life together . . .
Seri, beloved, forgive me. . .
. Then he was gone.

The guards had to peel my fingers away from the grate as I hung onto the sweet echo, straining to

hear more. But strangely enough, as Paulo and I were taken inside the Preceptors’ house, a different

voice whispered in my head.
Do not be afraid
, it said.
Say nothing
.

I wasn’t sure about that voice. Certainly it was not Karon’s. I might have named it Dassine’s voice,

though Bareil had told me that the old sorcerer was buried in his own garden. And, too, the tenor of it

was not quite the same. This sounded more as my own father might have done were he able to speak in

the mind—my grim warrior father, who thought nothing of leading a thousand men to their deaths in order

to slay a thousand enemies, all for the glory of his king. Once, when I was a child, my favorite pony had

been crippled in a fall. After commanding a servant to slay the suffering beast, my father had taken me on

his knee and awkwardly dried my tears. “The world goes on, little Seri,” he said. “A soldier never dies.

His blood makes the grass green for his children.”

Grief threatened to unravel me, all the more devastating after the hopes of the past summer—the love

and grace I had been granted after so many years of bitterness. Yet this strange and sober voice reached

through the storm that racked my soul and assured me that the universe was not random, not careless or

capricious. The Way was laid down, and somewhere I would find a reason for its turnings.

Perhaps it was my imagination. Perhaps I was a fool. But when Paulo and I were brought before the

Dar’Nethi Preceptorate, I said nothing, and I was not afraid.

CHAPTER 23

They had taken Karon’s body—no, more properly, D’Natheil’s body—away by the time Paulo and

I stumbled onto the fine rug laid before the council table. The patterned wool square, hastily moved, did

not quite cover the fresh blood that stained the white stone floor. They had kept us waiting in a bare

anteroom for several hours, able to hear only hurried footsteps and bursts of unintelligible conversation

through the door. The exclamations of dismay were clear enough, though, as the word of D’Natheil’s

death spread.

Gerick and Darzid were no longer present—only the six Preceptors in their high-backed chairs. The

one chair sitting empty at the end of the dais would have been Dassine’s. I wondered, somewhat

foolishly, who would be chosen to sit in the chair. Maybe no one. Maybe the Preceptorate would no

longer exist now that Gerick, a ward of Zhev’Na, was to become the Heir of D’Arnath.

“Who is this woman? Where did she come from? And another boy? Is this one your own long lost

son, Exeget?” said Ce’Aret.

“We should get on with our important business and interview spies later,” said Ustele. “Everything is

changed, now.”

“Not ordinary spies,” said Y’Dan, still red-eyed from his weeping, as he wiped his nose on his sleeve.

“These two are not Zhid.”

“Ustele is correct,” said Exeget. “We have two matters of utmost urgency: how we are to announce

the Heir’s death to the people, and what provision we must make for the boy’s care until he comes of

age—approximately a year, so I understand.”

Madyalar joined in. “Would that we could anoint the child right away.”

“Are you planning to destroy this young Prince the same way you ruined D’Natheil, Exeget?” said

Ce’Aret. “I pray this Exile Darzid is trustworthy as you assure us. The boy must not be compromised

either by the Zhid or our own foolishness. We must find him a proper protector and suitable mentors.”

“This Exile is eminently trustworthy,” said Exeget. “And he’s already taken the young Prince to a

place of safekeeping. I propose we leave him there. . . .”

As the six of them wrangled, a low mutter rose from beside me. “He’s not dead . . . not dead . . . not

dead.” Paulo was staring at the blood fading from red to brown underneath the edge of the rug. A tear

trickled down his freckled face. I reached for his hand, and for once he didn’t refuse it. When he looked

at me, I gave him a slight shake of the head, warning him to be silent.

“Now,” said Exeget. “Let us dispose of these spies, so we can get to our business. Not only are these

two strangers not Zhid; they are not even Dar’Nethi.”

“Not Dar’Nethi? No ... I see not.” An itchy warmth crept behind my eyes as old Ustele peered at me

across the table. One might have thought I had three heads. “Mundanes.”

Ce’Aret sat up straighter. “Mundane spies? Who is this woman?”

“As a spy she has severe lacks,” said Exeget. He tapped the ends of his smooth, white fingers

together lightly. “And one has only to look at the woman to know who she is— even if certain people are

too deaf to have heard her maudlin cries.”

“I’m not deaf,” spat Ce’Aret. “There was a commotion.”

“Yes, when D’Arnath’s Heir guts himself because his head pains him, an unseemly commotion is the

likely result. But come, old woman, can you not see the resemblance to our new liege? I do believe we

have the honor of meeting our young Prince’s mother.” Exeget jumped out of his seat and stepped from

the dais, coming to stand beside me. Arms folded, he inspected my garments and face, much the way he

might examine a piece of furniture.

“The mother? The wife, then, of the other—the Exile that lived in D’Natheil?” said Madyalar, staring

at me curiously. “Is that true?”

“The Lady Seriana Marguerite—widow of the same man for the second time,” said Exeget. “A sad

and most unusual case. And quite mundane. Of course, mundanes are not capable of spying as we know

it. They can read nothing from our minds, nothing of the auras of life, nothing beyond the dry evidence of

their eyes and ears. I cannot see how a Dar’Nethi—even an Exile—could consort with such deadness.”

“Is the woman mute?” said the querulous Ustele. “Why does she stand there so stupidly?”

“What should she say?” said Madyalar. “How pleased she is to meet us who sit in judgment of her

husband and her child? How delighted she is that the poor madman somehow got his hands on a knife

here in the council chamber? She’s committed no crime that I can see.” The woman slumped in her chair,

tapping her fingers rapidly on the table, her mouth drawn up in annoyance.

“Well, we can’t just let the woman go free.” The bald Y’Dan bit his lip and wrinkled his leathery

forehead. “She might know something useful. And I don’t understand—if she was the Prince’s wife, why

did he not acknowledge her? Why was she sneaking about here in the dirt and”—his nostrils flared—“the

stables?”

“All good questions,” said Madyalar. “But a more useful question might be how she can help us

understand our new Heir. The boy seems so cold. What child of ten calls his father a murderer? Our

examination revealed no evidence of murder in our late Prince.”

“Clearly one of us must question the woman before we let her go on her way,” said Exeget. “As she

cannot cross the Bridge to her own world until her own son can take her, she and her young companion

will need someone to take them under his wing. I consider such a matter to be my responsibility as head

of the Preceptorate.”

I almost broke my resolution of silence. I would not surrender myself or Paulo to Exeget.

“No, I’ll take her,” said Madyalar, shooting a wicked glare at Exeget. “You insisted I turn over the

Prince to you for the examination, and look what’s come of it. He was wreckage, already half dead

before you brought him here this morning. This matter”—she waved her hand at Paulo and me—“needs

a woman.”

“How dare you question me? The Prince’s state was Dassine’s fault, not mine, and if you think I will

allow the new Heir to be coddled by some maudlin female—”

“A plague on both of you”—Gar’Dena rose to his considerable height, pounding his meaty fist on the

table until the floor shook with it—“and on all of us Dar’Nethi who have allowed matters to reach this

pass.”

Throughout the whole discussion, the huge man had sat silently in his oversized chair, his massive head

resting on thick fingers ringed with emeralds and sapphires. But now his thundering rage silenced the

childish bickering like an arrow in the throat. “We were saved from one disaster by our brother Dassine

and this dead Exile, whom you so callously dismiss. Now we stand at the brink of another, and you

quarrel about your petty prerogatives. We should humble ourselves before this woman who has suffered

such loss as we cannot imagine. We have no right to question her, but should instead beg her forgiveness

and implore her to enlighten us as to what might influence her son to follow the Way of the Dar’Nethi. To

that end, I will take her under
my
protection, and whoever says ought against it will discuss it with my

fist.” A burst of white lightning spat from Gar’Dena’s jeweled hand.

Leaving Exeget and Madyalar sputtering and glaring and his other fellows openmouthed, Gar’Dena

lumbered down from the dais with surprising quickness, motioning Paulo and me brusquely to the door. I

could no more resist his direction than a feather could withstand a hurricane. When we passed through

the bronze doors, I felt slightly dizzy, and my eyes played tricks on me, for I seemed to exist in two

different rooms at once.

One was plainly furnished with a thick carpet of dull blue on the floor and padded benches of fine

wood set against bare, cream-colored walls. The other room could not have been more different. A vast,

opulent space, its walls were hung in red damask and gold velvet. From a ceiling painted with forest

scenes and dancing maidens hung great swathes of filmy red and yellow fabric that shimmered like water,

and spread on the green-tiled floor were purple patterned carpets so thick they could serve for a king’s

bed. Through the slowly shifting veils, I glimpsed lamps of ornately worked brass and silver standing on

large tables with black marble tops and gold lions for their legs. Statuary, silver wind chimes, ornaments

of glass and silver, and baskets of flowers stood or hung in every nook and niche. Two fountains bubbled

in the corners where plantings of greenery, even small trees, flourished in the soft light. Exotic birds

twittered from the branches, and everywhere was music: pipes and flutes and viols, softly playing every

manner of melody that varied depending on where you looked.

A large hand nudged me one step further. The plain room vanished. Gar’Dena, Paulo and I had come

fully into that other place. But the ebullient decoration of the vast chamber was not the whole of wonder.

Gar’Dena clapped his hands three times, and three young women instantly appeared in the room with us.

One was slim and short, with long, dark hair, her hand raised in mid-stroke with a silver-backed

hairbrush. The second girl was blond and tall. Surprise and annoyance crossed her handsome face as she

stood in the elegant room, her upraised hands and apron dusted with flour. The third and youngest, bright

and fresh-faced and surely no more than twelve or thirteen, was seated on one of the swooping fabric