Seri

Avonar. No poet has words to describe the view from our window in the Guesthouse of the Three Harpers. The Dar’Nethi called it the City of Light, though no such simple name could capture its glory. Stars… everywhere stars embedded in the night’s dark canvas, so brilliant that when you closed your eyes, the image was etched upon your inner vision. Their number was so profuse that the trees of two worlds could not produce so many leaves. And they were not confined to the heavens. The pale towers of Avonar soared into the heights like long, slender hands sent to reap the sparkling harvest and shower it upon the landscape below, not only in refined and solemn white, but in palest yellows and blues.

But even such a glorious vision as the royal city could not liven my spirit. Neither could the wonder that should accompany any venture into a new world, nor the simple relief at our safe passage through the Breach. I paced the little room, waiting for Karon and news of our son.

Bareil brought food: delicately fried pastries wrapped about a savory filling and dusted with cheese, golden fruits the size of apples with pink flesh that tasted like a blending of peaches and tart cherries, and a brass pot of something fruity and pungent that he called saffria. The others unstacked the small plates and poured the hot cider into mugs of painted pottery, gathering around a low table by the fire to share the meal.

I could muster no appetite. “Why would they bring him to Avonar?” I said. “And how was Darzid able to cross the Bridge without the Heir to open the way, to guide him, protect him…?”

Kellea waved her mug and amplified my questions. “And how could there be a Gate in the ruined Avonar? I thought there was only a single Gate to the Bridge in Gondai, and a single Gate in our world.”

“As to the Gate,” said Bareil, setting down his cup and wiping his mouth with his fingertips, “indeed only one exists in the world of Gondai with its single reflection in your world. But each Gate would have been built with multiple points of entry. Here in Gondai, all entries have been lost to the Zhid except the one in the palace in Avonar. We could not know where the entries in your world were set, of course, or how many might still exist. As for your other questions, I wish I could say. Perhaps when the Zhid followed D’Natheil to your world this past summer, the secret of the Bridge crossing was compromised. Master Dassine put extra wards at the two Gate chambers, but this entry we traveled had not been used for hundreds of years. And for the man to venture the Bridge without the Heir… I cannot…” Bareil’s expression suddenly fell blank and featureless. “Well, your guesses are more likely to be correct than those of a Dulcé unbidden by his madrisson.”

We filled the next two hours with trivialities. Kellea and Paulo made an inventory of our supplies, only what Bareil had carried in the small pack on his back and the rest of us had in our pockets. The Dulcé cleared away the meal, setting the remaining food aside for Karon, and then gave us a monologue on the major points of interest in the view from our window. Kellea asked about the bronze mask above the door, and Bareil told us the story of Vasrin of the Two Faces, who had existed when the universe was nothingness. But eventually these occupations flagged, and we fell into anxious silence. Heavy clouds rolled in from the mountains, obscuring the stars.

Another hour and we heard footsteps in the passage. One person. Bareil cracked open the door, peered out, and then pulled it wide open. “Holy Vasrin be praised for your safety, my lord.”

Karon shook a dusting of fresh snow from his cloak, but shook his head when Bareil moved to take the heavy garment from his shoulders. He moved directly to the fire, rubbing his hands together as he held them close to the flames. “Seems we brought an ill change in the weather.” He gratefully accepted Paulo’s offer of a mug of Bareil’s pungent fruit cider. After a sip or two, he settled on a stool by the fire. Only then did he glance at me, his blue eyes filled with such concern and sympathy that I thought my heart must rip. He averted his gaze quickly, fixing his eyes on the fire.

“I tracked them to a house, but didn’t follow them inside. Wards-protective enchantments, formidable ones-barred every door and window. It made no sense to break the wards until I knew more, lest I endanger the child unnecessarily.” Leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, Karon gripped the mug until I thought the pottery would crumble. “As I happen to know that particular house quite well, I could guess where the owner was like to take guests that arrive in the middle of the night. And I know how to observe what goes on in that room without setting off any alarms. But I was too slow. By the time I realized what they were doing, the circle was drawn, the candles were lit, and the words were spoken. The space inside the circle- the portal-opened onto another place… and the dark-bearded man stepped into that place with the boy. Only an instant and they were gone.” He flicked another glance my way before returning his gaze to the fire. “The child was asleep through everything, so he could not see what was happening and be afraid.”

“My lord, did you see anything of their destination, so that we might identify it?” asked Bareil.

“Enough, I think.”

“You know how to show me, so that you may command me to tell you of it?”

“Yes. Though I’m not sure we want to hear it.” Karon set the mug on the table, then laid his hand on the head of the Dulcé who knelt on the floor just in front of him. “Detan detu, Dulcé,” he said, quietly, “tell me of this place.”

For a moment Bareil wore no expression, but then his skin lost its rich color and he closed his eyes. The rage that had been heating my veins slowed for that one moment as if everything in the world held its breath. I heard the words even before he said them. “Detan eto, Giré D’Arnath. Everything in my experience tells me that this place is surely Zhev’Na, the stronghold of the Lords in the heart of the Wastes.”

“From what cursed house in the heart of Avonar do they send innocent children to Zhev’Na?” I had kept my seat while Karon spoke, but I could no longer hold back the storm that had been building since we crossed the Bridge. I stood in place, wrapping my arms tight about my breast, lest I fly apart in fear and fury and grief. “Darzid crossed the Bridge, a feat that I’ve been told is only possible with the aid of the Heir of D’Arnath. And now he’s taken this child into the heart of evil. In what ‘familiar house’ can such events take place without fear of retribution?” Never had I felt so helpless, not even when Karon and my son had been taken from me the first time. At least then I had lived in a world I understood.

For the first time since the bandit cave, Karon spoke directly to me. “The man read secret words carved into the stone of a fountain at my family’s house. We had been told the words would take us to a holy place, and we tried to use them a few times in the grotto. Without success. But we didn’t know the language, and so we didn’t understand about the moonlight. Now I seem to know the language…” A grimace tightened his brow for a moment. “As to the crossing… Dulcé, can you suggest how he might be able to pass the wards on the Bridge?”

“Perhaps if you were to command me, Lord.”

Karon issued his command to Bareil again. The Dulcé pondered for a few moments, and then looked up, crafting his words carefully. “Somehow the man Darzid must have known there was an entry point in the ruined city. I have no knowledge of how this could be possible. Clearly he read the inscription in stone at your family’s house, just as you did. This told him of the location of the entry and how to move from the cave to the Gate. And you, my lord… When we joined the lady and her friends in the bandit cave, you left the Bridge passage open for our return, and thus the man was able to cross unhindered. Master Dassine knew of that risk, but discounted it, because he believed no one in your world could know of the Gates. You had no way to know…”

“Demonfire!” The line of his jaw grew tighter. “And so it seems I must take the responsibility for his easy passage as well as the rest of it. To my shame and that of all Dar’Nethi, the house where the boy was taken is the Precept House of Gondai; the chamber is the meeting place of my counselors. And so, this wickedness, too, is my responsibility, and I swear to you that I will repair it. But I’ll not pursue my own reckoning with the Preceptors or do anything else that might jeopardize the boy’s safety until he is returned unharmed. Please have my word, Lady. Whatever is in my power to do, I will do. Your nephew-”

I must have flinched just then: changed color, grimaced, closed my eyes, compressed my lips, or given some other physical sign of my impatience with lies. For he stopped abruptly and examined me, his eyes widening with newfound understanding. “Gods in the heavens, he’s not your neph-”

“My lord”-Bareil shot to his feet, blocking the view between Karon and me before I could control my trembling enough to give answer-“you must command me to give you information about Zhev’Na. Not the location, of course. No one has ever found a route to Zhev’Na. Even were you to command me, I could not tell you. But I bear all of Master Dassine’s knowledge of the Wastes and the evil citadel. Surely some of it will be of value.”

Though his glance kept shifting to me, Karon listened to Bareil. I bit my tongue until I tasted blood. The moment of danger passed as the Dulcé drew him into several hours’ questioning.

Dassine had masqueraded as a Zhid for three months, joining a Zhid war band, a feat of enchantment and courage that was unprecedented. Before he could learn the route to Zhev’Na, however, he had been discovered and taken to the fortress as a prisoner, tortured until he could not walk properly. But over the period of three terrible years, even constrained as he was with formidable enchantments, he had hoarded power enough to restore the soul of his Zhid interrogator-the most difficult of all healing enchantments. The warrior had then helped him to escape.

The Dulcé‘s cache of information was indeed massive: observations of Zhid behavior and training, weather and landforms, detailed descriptions of enchantments and theories on how certain ones of them were created, snatches of conversations, relative locations and sizes of Zhid encampments around the fortress. But the bits and pieces were dreadfully disorganized. We didn’t know what questions to ask, and the answers Bareil provided were tangled in the old Healer’s speculations on the nature of the Bridge and the Lords of Zhev’Na. Little of immediate value. Nothing of how we might broach the fortress. Nothing of what the Lords might have planned for Gerick. Nothing of how we might snatch him back.