Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (43 page)

that no experience in the history of two worlds had rivaled my own. That of D’Arnath himself,

perhaps—the sorcerer and king become warrior, powerful enough to build a link between worlds,

reverenced so truly by his people that his successors never took his own title, but considered their highest

honor to be named his Heir. But even D’Arnath had lived only one life. I had lived two, each of them

twice through, once in the proper order of time as all men do and once in memory. And for ten years I

had been properly dead, my orphaned soul linked to an artifact of power—a small black crystal

pyramid—by the enchantments of an audacious Healer. And next ... I could not think of next.

My trembling was quite real on that occasion, both as a result of what I had been through and in

anticipation of its sequel, and when I said, “Ten breaths more and I will be unable to stop screaming,” I

believed that to be the literal truth.

I had known I would have to follow Dassine’s instructions to give myself to the Preceptorate. All I

could offer the Lady Seriana and her companions were a bit of power and a strong sword arm, and

neither appeared sufficient to their needs. The problem of the child was too complex, and Dassine, the

one who understood such complexities, was dead. My mentor’s legacy was my life, and the only thing he

had ever asked in return was my trust. I could not refuse him.

Once I had decided on my course as we sat in the Guesthouse of the Three Harpers, I considered

what to tell the lady, but I couldn’t think what she would want to hear from me. How stupid I was. How

blind. She was so angry, and I thought it was because I couldn’t be what she expected, because I kept

falling off the edge of the world in front of her. And so, in the end, I said nothing but to my madrissé. I

abandoned the lady, walked into the grand commard of Avonar, and told a sleepy baker’s boy my name.

Dassine had not said to keep my going secret, and I hoped the crowd might provide some measure of

safety. It became a much larger spectacle than I had envisioned. We Dar’Nethi are a romantic people,

much given to ceremonies and rituals that draw out our emotions. Over that long night I had also decided

to surrender myself to Madyalar instead of Exeget. Our meeting at Dassine’s house had left me with a

good impression of her.

“Come with me, my lord,” said Madyalar, proceeding briskly between the columns of the portico.

Her shoes clicked on the flagstones. The palace gates clanged shut behind us.

“Pause a while, good lady,” said Exeget, spitting venom as he held his ground by the gates. “Despite

this charming little pageant we have just witnessed, the protocols of the Preceptorate are not suspended.

I, as head of the Preceptorate, will carry out the first examination of the petitioner.”

“Master Exeget is correct,” said Ce’Aret.

“The Prince surrendered himself to
me
and no one else,” said Madyalar. “All saw it. Come, my lord.”

She grabbed my arm and dragged me toward a side door, tucked away under the portico beside the

great entry doors.

“You overreach, Madyalar,” shouted Gar’Dena. “The subject’s choice has no bearing. I think that

Ce’Aret, as the eldest . . .”

As Bareil had warned me, presenting myself to Madyalar instead of Exeget had caused an uproar.

Each of them chimed in, wrangling over prerogatives and precedence. Meanwhile I was barefoot and

shirtless, shivering, and faced with the undignified prospect of being unable to wipe my dripping nose

because my hands were still bound with their confounded ribbon. And truly, there was no dispute.

“I submitted to Madyalar,” I said, causing all of them to stop in mid-argument and stare at me. For

me to interrupt or to speak at all was quite improper, according to Dar‘-Nethi ritual. “She will determine

what is best, else I will determine some other way to accomplish my purposes.” I wrenched my hands

free of the silver ribbon and used it to blot my nose.

All discussion was immediately ended. Being the Heir of D’Arnath had its privileges.

Madyalar was pleased, of course, and Exeget was livid, which pleased me. He bowed. “I leave you

to the viper, my lord.” I thought his teeth might turn to powder from his grinding them.

Madyalar led me on a long trek through the passages of the east wing, the part of the palace given

over to the Preceptors who desired work space in the most secure building in the city. Her lectorium was

a businesslike chamber, windowless and chilly, as were most such workrooms devoted solely to magical

pursuits. Flasks and boxes of potions and powders were neatly arranged on her work-tables. Small

chests and painted cabinets that would hold bits of glass and metal, stones and gems were set square

against the dark-colored walls. She gave me a green linen tunic and a pair of sandals to put on, as my

shirt and boots had not found their way through the palace gates with us. Then she motioned me to a

chair facing her across a low table.

“I’m gratified, but curious as to your course of action this morning, D’Natheil. After so long away and

so soon after your mentor’s death, to submit for examination seems strange. I presume you understand

the depths to which you have humiliated Exeget. We all know of the unease between you, but this . . . it’s

most likely irreconcilable. Why me?”

“I believe you are honorable and care deeply about the future of Avonar and its people,” I said.

“Exeget is not and does not.”

She dipped her head in acknowledgment.

“And I’m in somewhat of an awkward position.”

“Go on.”

“Dassine sent me to you—well not to you precisely, but to the Preceptorate.”

“Dassine?” She jumped up from her chair. Her tone was sharp as a razor knife. “I understood his

wounds were mortal.”

“I was with him when he died.”

She stepped back a bit and put her hands inside the rainbow folds of her robe. “What did he tell

you?”

“Only that if certain things were to come about, I was to surrender myself to the Preceptorate for

examination. No other explanation. I hoped you might understand what he meant.”

She considered my words briefly. Then she sat down again. “Dassine and I were good friends, not

intimate, as I’m sure you know, but allies. We had . . . business . . .together. Perhaps if you were to tell

me of these ‘certain things’ to which you refer . . .”

“A boy has been taken by the Zhid. Dassine said that if the child was taken to Zhev’Na, then I had to

do this. The child must be rescued.”

She threw back her tousled gray hair and laughed uproariously, though her laughter seemed shallow

and out of proportion to her amusement. “Is that all? It sounds just like Dassine. ‘I’ve taken the Heir and

kept him hidden for ten years, letting him out only long enough to preserve the Bridge, and, oh, by the

way, tell him how to rescue an unknown boy from Zhev’Na.’ Tell me, my lord, what is it you want from

me? Are we playing games here? I’m not a fool.”

What did I want? Advice? Help? I didn’t understand her laughter, but then she probably couldn’t

imagine the limits of my knowledge. Dassine had said I must go to the Preceptorate for examination, not

for help. He had trained me well to listen to him, and he would have chosen his words carefully, knowing

he had so few left. I had to believe that whatever I needed to know would be revealed by the

examination—even if it was only that I was too damaged to continue.

“I wish to proceed with the examination, but I want Exeget to have no part in it.”

Pleasure suffused her wide, plain face. “You realize that in the examination I will enter your mind.

You’ll not be able to refuse my questions or tell me anything but truth. Is that your wish?”

“Yes ... I suppose so.”

Everything happened very quickly after that. Madyalar unlocked a small mahogany cabinet sitting on

her worktable and pulled out two crystal flasks. One contained a liquid of such deep red as to be almost

black, and the other a substance that was clear, but thick like honey when she poured it into a silver

goblet. She measured the dark liquid carefully and poured it into the same goblet, then left it for a

moment while she turned down the lamps and struck a fire in a small pottery brazier that sat on the low

table between us. A handful of gray powder dropped into the flames snapped and sparkled and gave off

a heavy scent— agrina, an herb which enhanced one’s receptivity to many enchantments. Another,

subtler fragrance, almost undetectable, wafted behind the sharp, pungent odor of the agrina. Cennethar, I

suspected, a powerful agent used to relax control of the muscles. From the heart of the little fire a thin

trail of smoke twined its way toward me. Madyalar motioned me to move closer and breathe it in.

I almost changed my mind. Bareil had told me that Dassine trusted none of the Preceptors, yet here

was I, with wounds not yet healed from earlier battles, ready to expose them to an untried physician.

Leaving myself so vulnerable . . . The cennethar unnerved me. But if I were to refuse, what else would I

do? Lacking any answer to that question, I released my held breath and took another, allowing

Madyalar’s smoke to fill my lungs.

The fumes soon had me light-headed. I was so tired . . . stupid to come after a night without sleep. I

had needed quiet time to think, and so had offered to watch while my companions slept. Once I had

come to my resolve, I’d wanted to get on with it—before the Lady Seriana could wake and talk me out

of it or leave me a voiceless idiot once again. But here in Madyalar’s dark study, watching the rising

flames and breathing the choking smoke, I felt soggy and drowsy. I tried to tell Madyalar that we might

better wait until I got some sleep, but I couldn’t get the words out.

She stood in front of me. “Manglyth,” she said, holding out the silver goblet, “the potion we use for

examination.”

The two liquids had not mixed. The dark one hung suspended in the clear, so that the drink looked

like an egg with a dark red yolk, encased in the silver shell of the goblet.
Drink it all
, Madyalar

motioned, holding the cup to my lips. The clear liquid was icy cold and sweet, coating my tongue and my

throat, but the dark one boiled away the sweet coating and scalded my very bones. Panicked, I wanted

to push it away, but my hands lay on the arms of the chair like tide-dropped seaweed, and the big

woman relentlessly poured the rest of her potion into me. Enough of the sweet liquid remained in the cup

to soothe my mouth and throat a bit, leaving them throbbing and sore, but not blistered. As for the rest of

me, flesh and thought and memory were turned inside out, exposed to anyone who should desire to

inspect them.

“Uncomfortable, I know”—I heaved and gasped for breath, unable to move to help myself—“but

necessary. Now we begin. Your secrets . . . Dassine’s secrets . . . now belong to me, as do you, in a

sense. You cannot imagine. . . . And to have you present yourself to me willingly!” Madyalar sat opposite

me once again, her expression that of a moneylender introduced to a wastrel baron. Not at all motherly. I

began to suspect that I had made a dreadful mistake.

Quickly, brutally, Madyalar wrenched open the gates of my mind. No sound disturbed her chamber

save the snapping of the flames in the brazier. Rather, her questions appeared directly inside my head.

Though I could formulate my responses, she retrieved them in the same way, with no artifice of voice or

limitation of words to obscure their truth. I could neither withhold an answer nor could I lie.

Came her question:
Who is the child in Zhev’Na
?

Came my answer:
He is the son of Dassine’s friend, a mundane child stolen from his home five

days ago
.

A mundane child! Why have the Zhid taken him?

I do not know.

And what is your interest in the child?

Dassine instructed me to find him. He said if the boy was taken to Zhev‘Na before I found him,

then I should surrender myself to the Preceptorate for examination.

Nothing more?

Nothing more.

And you are accustomed to taking direction from Dassine without understanding any more

than this?

Yes.

Why is that?

I do not know.

She was puzzled, and I couldn’t blame her, but I was unable to volunteer any information. I could

only answer her questions. She rubbed her lips with an idle finger.

What have you been doing with Dassine in these past months since your return from the

Bridge?

I have been regaining my memory.

Your memory . . . lost? You did not know . . . what? The deeds of a night? The happenings of a

week?

I knew nothing of myself.

Nothing! Did this happen when you walked the Bridge these few months ago?

Dassine said that whatever happened at the Bridge worsened damage that was done earlier.

From the first attempt
, she said.
I knew it. So Dassine the Healer was restoring your memories.

Fortunately for you, he was a talented man. And so now you are restored
.

I wasn’t sure whether the last was a statement or a question, but as long as there was doubt, I was