Son of Avonar (57 page)

Outside the open door children squealed with laughter. Something—a rock or a ball—thumped against the side of the house, and Marika's quiet command shooed the giggling group farther away. So much to consider. I mouthed some feeble apology for Rowan's injury and my misjudgment of his motives. To say more would be to acknowledge that somehow the honor of a man sworn to exterminate a race was worthy of respect. I could not yet bring myself to do that. But he had surely earned my gratitude. His dogged pursuit had brought me exactly what I needed.

“Kellea, we need your help.”

“It seems a permanent condition. Who will die this time?” The girl dared me to make her care.

“Your grandmother and Professor Ferrante believed the stakes were worth the risk.” I did not blink.

Kellea stood in the doorway, her shoulders square, her back as stiff and angular as the granite peaks outlined against the sky. “Go on.”

“Yesterday in the storm, D'Natheil left our shelter and never returned. Can you find him?”

“Unless he's worked some sorcery, I can. I would need something of his, something personal. I've been following the group. Without something that belongs to him alone, I might lead you back on your own tracks.”

Shirts, weapons, even his own cup . . . D'Natheil had taken everything with him. “I don't know. . . .”

“My lord's woodcarving.” I was startled when Baglos spoke up. “He left it out two nights ago, and he's not wanted it these two days.” Rummaging in the pack at his feet, he pulled out the chip of birchwood.

A sober grief had enveloped the Dulcé since D'Natheil had gone missing. All day his dark eyes had been luminous with unshed tears, his endless chatter and questioning stilled. And now his short, warm fingers spoke eloquently of his sorrow yet again, holding tight to the carving even as he laid it in my hand. I could not understand his reluctance to yield the wood . . . until I looked at it.

The face of the smooth square was half covered with a fine tracery of lines. Flowers—a veritable garden of miniature blooms of infinite variety and simple grace, delicately traced in the white wood. As I ran my finger over the fine work, the images took on new depth, subtle shadings, and a velvety texture. The scent that rose from them was not that of newly carved wood, but of a spring garden. Such enchantment. Such artistry. I glanced up at Baglos, but he had turned away. I held the piece a long while before offering it to Kellea. “What you do won't damage it?”

“What I do has nothing to do with its substance. I only look for him in it.”

Kellea held the wood with both hands and closed her eyes. After a few moments she set the carving on the table and wandered across the room, arms folded. She stepped out of the door and stood alone for a long time, head bowed.

Rowan leaned across the table. “It takes a while for it to happen,” he said, his voice quiet, filled with wonder. “She says she's not very good at it.” His eyes were fixed on the girl.

“She never had a mentor. A ‘third parent' they called them, one who would teach her how to use her gift, and how to hide it, the ethics of it, how to bear its burdens.”

“It's hard to get used to the idea.”

“But you're not afraid?” Not ready to arrest her or bind her to a stake and set her afire . . .

“I've spent ten years learning not to fear those things I don't understand. Though the tutor had no such intent, I'm grateful for the lessons. But I can never go back—” He broke off, his lined face bleak and honest, speaking things a soldier was never taught to say.

I shoved our empty mugs to the center of the table. “Jaco always told me I should trust you.”

The corner of his mouth turned up ever so slightly. “He always told me that you were pigheaded, but that eventually you'd see the error of your ways.”

Before I could formulate a proper retort, Kellea reappeared in the doorway. “He's not far.”

We found him in the ruined castle, half a league south of Yennet. Kellea had led us down a narrow track that wandered across the green hills toward the mountains. The bronze sun was low over the western peaks when the crumbled ruin came into view at the crest of a rise. Kellea pulled up and waited for us, pointing at the hilltop.

“I'll go on alone,” I said.

“I will go,” said Baglos. “I am his Guide.”

“He commanded you to follow my lead,” I said. “You'll wait.” The Dulcé, more like himself again, went into a pout, but I trusted it would last only until his worry got the best of him. He didn't hold tempers long.

Rowan didn't like the idea of my going alone, either, but I refused his company as well. “If I'm not back in an hour, you may ride to my rescue,” I said. “But carefully, please.” We had seen no signs of a fight. No guards. No hoofprints or corpses or blood to hint at hunters or sorcerer-priests. Whatever had brought D'Natheil to this place, I didn't think swords were going to repair it.

A warren of collapsed stone crowned the green hilltop. The exaggeration of evening shadows evoked a ghostly remembrance of the round towers and thick walls that had once dominated the countryside. Only one end of the ancient keep remained intact, three walls and a few sagging roof beams that created a shadowy shelter. The wind, heavy with the scents of damp earth and verdure, had picked up with the cooling hour and rustled the tall grass from behind me, and as I tethered Firethorn to a shrub that had sprung out of the rubble, an uneasy flock of sparrows swarmed upward in a fluttering mass. I picked my way carefully through the silent ruin. It didn't seem proper to call out in such a place.

A quick survey from atop a ruined wall told me that D'Natheil must be inside the keep if he was here. Neither he nor his horse was anywhere to be seen. I climbed over a fallen beam and up a crude staircase of stone blocks to a raised remnant of stone flooring. This would have been the great hall of the long-dead lord. Here had stood the huge hearth, back in the days when the fire would blaze through the night while the lord's soldiers and courtiers, children, cousins, and dogs ate, drank, and bedded down on the rush-strewn floor. Had I believed in ghosts I could have found them in the sun-drenched stones or, at the least, conjured the remnants of old songs and drunken jests and good fellowship.

The end of the keep where the roof still held seemed as deserted as the rest of the ruin. Disappointed, I was on the verge of turning back, when I caught a slight movement in the deepest shadows of the farthest corner. He was huddled against the wall like a child in disgrace, his head buried in his arms.

“D'Natheil,” I called softly. “My lord prince.”

He didn't move. I approached quietly and knelt beside him, relieved to feel the warmth of life still pulsing from him.

“D'Natheil, tell me that you live. We're afraid for you.”

“Go away from here,” he whispered. “Far away.”

I released my breath. “Why should I?”

“Please.” He spoke with his jaw clenched, as if to keep himself from screaming.

“I've never heard you say please in all these weeks, and if my going would encourage it, I might consider the matter. But I also do nothing without a reason. Why should I leave you?”

“I can't hold them back any longer.” He drew in a shuddering breath.

“The Zhid, you mean? The Seeking? Are they after you again?”

“Unceasing.” A wrenching groan slipped through his control, and he shrank further into his corner, as if driven by the lash of an invisible taskmaster.

Unceasing.
“And you've been shielding us from it.”

“They're coming for me.” He raised his head. His eyes were pits of blackness, his skin stretched across the bones of his face. Exhausted. “You must be far away.”

“We won't let them take you. Baglos would give his life for you. And we're two more now. Graeme Rowan and Kellea have offered their help. If we're together, we can protect each other, find a house, a forest—”

“Numbers, houses, forests. Those things don't matter if I invite them. They force me to look into my mind before the running, and I can't do it without madness. They've promised to give me back my life.” He shook his head. “You mustn't be here when they come.”

“They do not give life. You've known that since the beginning,” I said. “You demonstrated it for me with two blades of grass. You're a warrior. So fight.”

“There is nothing in me.” The haunted ruins around us were not half so bleak as his words. No lingering ghosts of joy or pleasure walked D'Natheil's mind. No grace of evening sunlight bathed the stones of his being. His pain was palpable in the dimness.

Walk away,
I told myself, rebellion prompting me to my feet.
Leading him on a journey is one thing. Using your intelligence and experience to set him on the road to his destiny is only right. But this . . .
To draw a soul from despair is such an intimate thing. I would need to know more of him than Baglos's meager tales. Something of his dreams or desires. Something of the person hidden behind the changing seasons. How could one forge such a link with something that didn't exist?
Impossible. Walk away.

But irksome tethers of responsibility and caring bound my feet. Perhaps all I needed to do was wake him up. Make him think. I stood straight and raised my voice. “How dare you dismiss these weeks since you came to me? I've worked hard to teach you a thing or two. Perhaps it's not been a life a prince might expect. But you came to me a despicable bully, and now you give of yourself: to Tennice, to Paulo, to me, even to Baglos. That would not be possible if there were nothing in you. These voices of shadow fear you, D'Natheil, and despair is their ally. What kind of warrior would allow them to succeed with such a paltry weapon?”

He ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I tried. I'm still trying, but I am not enough.”

“Didn't you hear Dassine? You told me he spoke only truth, and, if so, then you cannot discount the things he said of you nor the voice with which he said them. He loves you as a son and says you are worthy of our trust. Whatever he's done to you, I cannot believe he would send you forth with no resources to fight this battle.”

“He sent me to you. . . .” His eyes were as stark as northern winter.

“So he did.”

“. . . but I cannot . . . will not . . . bring you harm. Go away.” He was half pleading, half commanding.

The sunlight beckoned beyond the broken walls. I didn't want to be here. I had not asked for this. Why had Dassine sent D'Natheil to me? Was it only that I knew the words to understand his needs? Was it only that I had knowledge to help unravel the puzzle of his destination, to find what was left of the Exiles to unlock his message, to keep him safe in my world? D'Natheil had isolated himself to protect us, and his mind had become a prison in which his tormentors could do whatever they willed with him. Indeed I
should
leave him. I had no weapon to repel this kind of assault.

A prison . . .
As I watched the Prince huddle alone in his anguish, harsh truth ripped my soul like the first blast of winter. I
had
been here before . . . and I
had
walked away. Had Karon felt me abandon him as he shivered alone in the cold wind, awaiting the first touch of flame? Had he heard my pleading and accusations and condemnation there at the end, only pretending confused hearing? He had believed his soul was the price of our safety, and I had cursed him for not paying it. And because I could not forgive him, I had turned my back on him, refusing the only thing he had ever asked of me.
Live, my dearest love. You are the essence of life. . . .
I had walled myself up in my own prison and allowed my life to wither away.

Forgiveness cannot change what has gone before. Were Karon standing in front of me in this ruin, he would hold to his conviction that he could not use his power in corrupt ways just to save us. And I would argue until my last breath that a man of honor, a man who loved, could not allow his child and his friends to be murdered. But forgiveness is not a matter of repayment or surrender or forgetting, of winning or losing. It is a transformation of the heart. Yes, I knew of prisons and torment. That was why my feet wanted so badly to walk away . . . and why, in the end, I could not. Not this time.

I sat down on the rough ground in front of D'Natheil, pushing aside the broken paving stones that poked through my skirt. “Listen to me”—he had buried his head again with another shuddering breath—“and look at me. I want to tell you a story. Baglos told us of your childhood, a childhood blighted by war in a city that should have known only peace, but I'm going to tell you of a childhood of peace, among people who fought a battle that was much the same as yours. It should have been your childhood, too, if your people had not forgotten how to make it so. . . .”

I told him Karon's stories of growing up in Avonar with the descendants of J'Ettanne, where the children always had an uncle or an aunt to listen to their troubles, where they waited anxiously for their talents to emerge, even though use of them brought only danger and risk, where they listened wide-eyed to the magical stories of Av'Kenat and dreamed of one day sharing in such a celebration. I told him of Celine, and all I could remember of the exploits of Eduardo the Horse Tamer, and Gaillard the Builder, who stayed late every night after his workmen went home and sang to his bricks until they nestled smooth in their mortar. When his workmen would return the next morning, Gaillard would laugh merrily as the men stood and marveled at their own prowess, boasting that nowhere in the Four Realms were there such skilled bridge builders as in Avonar.