“My friend,” I said, forcing a smile and a calm I did not feel. “Of all the stragglers we've picked up in the Wastes, I never expected to find my most faithful companion. Are you feeling better?”
I would have sworn he turned pale under the sunburn. “I thought I was done for,” he said. “It's come a habit I got to break.”
“I'm glad we found you.”
“There was a sandstorm. Guess I took a wrong turn somewhere.”
He sat up, took the cup, and drained it, never removing his intent gaze from my face. I wondered what he was looking for, but he spoke before I could ask. “She's dead, then?”
“What do you mean?”
“The Lady. I kept hopin' you'd been able toâBut I guess not.”
“Seri is alive.”
He almost leaped out of the bed. “Cripes! You had me there for a bit. I thought . . . you just looked . . . damn! Where is . . . I mean . . . she's not here, I guess. Not in the Wastes. The ones who found me said you had battles going on.”
“She's safe in Avonar.”
He breathed deeply and slowly. “It's fine to hear that.”
“She was very ill.”
His eyes flicked away from my face. “I'd give a deal to see her.”
“I'll take you to her, if you want. It might do her good to see you. Once a day we send our wounded back to Avonar through a portal. But we can't keep it open for too long at a time lest the Zhid find our camps. I've matters to attend tonight, but we'll go tomorrow if you're feeling up to it.”
The wind billowed the tent walls, rattling the lamps and tools hung from hooks on the cross poles.
Paulo settled back onto the thin pillow the Healer had slipped under his head. “I think I'll sleep then, if it's all right. I got to tell you about what happened and all, but I'm swiped right now. I was afraid to sleep out there in the desert, thinking as how I'd never get up again. Got a lot to make up.”
“I'm sure that's true. The Preceptor Ven'Dar and his aides will be close if you need anything, but I'll tell them to let you sleep.”
“I'll be all right. I don't want to keep nobody from their business.”
“You can tell me all about your adventures tomorrow before we go to Seri. I have to understand how you got here, where you've been . . . You know that.”
“I understand. My lord, am I your prisoner?”
“No. You're not a prisoner. Sleep well, lad.”
I took my leave and stepped through the curtain. Ven'Dar was waiting, and I motioned him to walk out into the night with me. “Leave him unguarded,” I said.
“But, my lord, if he's been with your son . . .”
“I'll be watching.”
The night wind blew cold in the Wastes and quickly erased the memory of the furnace that was daylight. For a while I shared my warriors' campfires, allowing them to relive the day's battle for me until they'd rid themselves of enough of it that they could sleep, but always I stood where I could keep an eye on Ven'Dar's dark tent. As the hour grew late and the campfires smoldered, flaring into false life with a gust of wind, then dying again in swirls of sparks, the warriors rolled into their blankets to dream away the horror.
Ordinarily, once I had seen to those who had to face the Zhid another day, I would go to the wounded, but on this night I sat in the dark on a hillock of warm sand and gravel, alone until Bareil brought me warm cheese, bread, and ale. “Do you wish for company, my lord, or should I leave you?”
“You are always welcome, Dulcé. A tree does not consider its trunk âcompany.' ”
Bareil, the wise companion who had been instrumental in restoring my memory and saving my sanity after Dassine's death, sat cross-legged on the sand beside me. “How fares young Paulo?”
“The Healers tell me he's only blistered and dry. He tells me nothing at all.”
“Surely you do not doubt him? He would give his life for you.”
“Watch Ven'Dar's tent, and we'll see.”
I considered invoking the link between my madrissé and me, to discover if somewhere in his vast knowledge he could formulate any good reason why Paulo would be wandering around in the desert beyond the Castyx Rocks, bearing a message for Seriâany reason that would not speak treason. But, on second thought, I needed no more unproven theories.
Less than a quarter hour passed until the dark form rolled out from under the rear of the blue tent, crept to a clump of dead trees, then slipped through the darkness toward the lights and activity of the pavilion where the wounded lay. Bareil and I followed quietly, staying well back. The boy's timing was perfect. He lay still on the sand, waiting for half an hour or more as the Healers went about their business. But Ven'Dar had no sooner finished the words that left a wavering oval distortion in the air before the pavilion, than the slender figure darted out of the shadows and straight through the portal. A few shouts rang out from those watching, but I assured everyone that there was no cause for alarm, and they soon went back to their grim business of transporting their fellows through the portal, patching the lesser wounds of those who were to stay, and caring for the dead.
I told Bareil to take my horse back to my headquarters, then I spent a few moments with each of the wounded before reopening the portal to Avonar and stepping through it myself.
The portal opened into a large building that had been converted into a hospice for those the Healers could not return to health or those who needed a longer time to recover. I didn't go there often enough; it was too difficult when there was nothing I could do for those who lay in the endless rows of simple white pallets. But on that night, I spent a while with my brave warriors. I knew where I would find Paulo eventually, but it would take him some time to learn where she was and get himself there.
In the quiet hour before dawn I commandeered a horse and rode out of the north gates of Avonar, up the winding road that led to the Lydian Vale and a quiet, graceful white house called
Nentao
, “the Haven.” I had refused numerous offers of protection from those uneasy at seeing their sovereign ride out unaccompanied in the night. I hoped what I told them was true, that I had no need of guards. I didn't want to believe that Paulo had turned traitor, too.
When I left my horse in the front courtyard and walked through the rose arbor into the garden, the sky was already a vibrant pink. A hand touched my sleeve from out of a leafy bower. I would have been sorely disappointed if nothing of the sort had occurred, and I stepped into the sheltering shrubbery without hesitation.
“A surprise to see you here, my lord.”
“Good morning, Radele.”
“She has a visitor this morning. The stable boy . . . but then you must know that. It's why you're here.”
“Has he said anything?”
“He's only just found her.”
“I presume there has been . . .”
“. . . no change, my lord.”
“Yes. Thank you, Radele.”
I left him and walked up to the little terrace centered by a dribbling fountain. Seri was sitting in a chair by the fountain as she did every morning, her lovely face bathed in the dawn light. A dusty, blistered Paulo knelt at her feet, panting as if he'd run all the way from Avonar.
“My lady, can you hear me? Please, my lady, what's wrong? I've brought you a message.”
“She won't answer you,” I said, stepping out of the shade.
He looked up, startled. Seri didn't turn her head.
“She's said no word since her injury. I think she hears us, but she makes no acknowledgment. She walks when we guide her. She eats whatever is put before her. She'll hold a book and look at it, but she does not turn the page. She neither laughs nor smiles nor weeps, but I don't know if she
cannot
speak or if she
will
not. No one has been able to tell me that.”
“Oh, my lord. I'm so . . . I never thought . . .”
I brushed my hand over her beautiful hair, silky dark brown with the touch of fire in it. A few strands of gray. Her quiet expression with the little frown between her eyes did not change as she peered into the rising sun.
“And even you . . .”
“I have nothing to give her.”
Paulo looked back at my wife, and to my surprise, took her limp hand and kissed it. “Ah, my lady, I'm so sorry,” he whispered. Tears rolled down his sunburned cheeks.
“Come,” I said. “Let's walk a bit.”
He did not move or take his eyes from her.
“I insist.” I took his arm and pulled him up, noting that he'd grown again. He was almost as tall as I. “I wanted you to see my son's handiwork for yourself, lest somehow he has managed to retain some remnant of your misdirected loyalty. He's killed her, Paulo, as surely as if she had breathed her last.”
He was quiet for a long time, but I didn't push him. There were other Dar'Nethi who would, but I believed nothing could be as devastatingly persuasive as the sight of Seri in her walking death. I knew what it had done to me.
“Now, tell me where you've been, and what is this message you've brought my wife.”
He didn't look at me, just walked alongside me, his hands clasped behind his back. His sand-colored brows were drawn together in a thoughtful frown.
“Everything's wicked confused; I suppose my head's still muddled from the desert. I remember I followed the young master from the gardens at Windham. I was ready to kill him for what he done to the Lady. I caught him and took him down, but I don't know for sure what happened then. We traveled someplace . . . a new place. It's like a dream that lasted forever, but right now it won't come into my mind any more than a dream what slipped away when you woke up. Next thing I remember, I woke up in the desert thinking I had to find the Lady.”
“Where did he take you? Was it Zhev'Na?”
“It wasn't there. I'd have known Zhev'Na. We were in Valleor for a time, someplace in the north I'd never been before, but I'm no good at maps to tell you where. And then we were in this other place. Not an evil place, I don't think.”
“And what message would he have you give Seri?”
“I can't say the message.”
I left it for the moment. “Where is he now? Where did you leave him? Was he already joined with the Three?”
“He's not one of the Lords no more. Even with my head so thick, I'll swear as it's true, my lord. And he's not in Zhev'Na. But I can't tell you where he is. He's hiding, my lord, hiding where nobody can find him. He's afraid of you.”
“As well he should be.”
“He knows you won't believe him. He understands that and holds no blame to you for it. I think that's why he sent me to the Lady.”
“You're a good friend, Paulo. Seri and I, and everyone in both worlds, are forever in your debt. But it will all be undone, all the suffering and death, all the sacrifice of thousands of people will be wasted if Gerick rejoins the Lords. You understood the consequences before, and they've not changed except for the worse.”
We had come to the edge of the garden terrace, a white railing beyond which the land dropped away into the soft green swathes of the Lydian Vale, the Vale of Eidolon closest to Avonar. Its sun-drenched woodlands nestled between the spires of the Mountains of Light, and in autumn its leaves splashed fire-yellow and scarlet against Avonar's deep blue skies. In my four years in Avonar, I had often walked this vale and dreamed of bringing Seri here. I had imagined her face reflecting its beauty, enriching it beyond measure with her delight. But now her eyes reflected nothing, and I saw no beauty anywhere. I gripped the white iron railing until my knuckles looked a part of it.
“Do you understand what Gerick's betrayal has cost us? You knew the three who were once Zhid, the ones I healed at the Gate. They were ready to destroy the heart of power in Zhev'Na, while the finest sorcerers in Avonar encircled the fortress and created a barrier of enchantment the Lords could not breach. My counselor Jayereth had found the means necessary to free the Dar'Nethi slaves. We could have won without bloodshed, Paulo. We could have worked a healing on this blighted land. But all was undone by my son, and we are left with nothing but weapons and blood. But even they are not enough. Gerick's betrayal has strengthened the Lords, revealed our vulnerabilities, and if he joins with them again, we will be lost. Both worlds. Forever. I cannot allow it. You must tell me where he is.”
Paulo, the youth I thought I knew, looked me in the eye as he had never done, one man to another. Neither fear nor awe nor willful deceit showed itself in him. “My lord Prince, I owe you and the Lady all as is possible to owe. I would lay down my life for you, or ride to the ends of the earth to fetch for you, or give you my legs back if you was to need them, or my arms or my head. If it means you must hang me or put me in irons or send me back to the life I was born to, then so be it, but I cannot tell you what you ask. I've sworn my oath . . . and I feel it as deep as a man can know what's right. He is not with the Lords. He's hiding where no one can find him. I can tell you no more than that.”
“You know that any Dar'Nethi could read you and find out everything you know.” Not exactly true. Few had the ability any longer, but Paulo couldn't know that.
He did not waver. “The Prince I honor wouldn't allow that. Not if I said to him that I gave him no leave to do it.”
“Maybe the Prince you honor doesn't exist any more.”
“Then this war is lost anyway, no matter what I tell or don't tell.”
And that, of course, had been the whisper in my own mind for four villainous months, but I would not hear it from an illiterate boy. I released the fury pent up in my hands and sent him sprawling across the terrace. “Radele!”