The Soul Weaver (43 page)

But the significance of Men'Thor's news stretched well beyond the tragedy of a bountiful land touched by war. Since the earliest years of our war with the Lords, when they ravaged Grithna, Erdris, and Pylathia, the Zhid had been barred from the Vales. We had thought the remaining Vales secure as long as Avonar stood.

“Our enemies have penetrated the southern wards and struck the towns of Tanis and Ephah, withdrawing before the Prince could respond,” said Men'Thor, shaking his head. “But the Lords' true power is revealed. Tomorrow the Prince will walk the ruins of Ephah, knowing that the fate of the world hangs by the thinnest of threads. If the Zhid can take the Vales, untouched for a thousand years, Avonar can be surrounded. And that will be the end, as surely as if the Lords' plot to destroy the Bridge had succeeded or the demon son been anointed Heir.”

“How was it possible?” I said. “The Watch . . .”

“Someone has compromised the Vale Watch. Though only the Prince and the Preceptors knew the secret of the watch, such an event was hardly unexpected now the Destroyer has shown himself.”

“The Prince will be forced to listen to you now, Father,” said Radele. “Take down the Destroyer first, then Zhev'Na itself.”

“You assume it's the Prince's son who has caused this?” I said.

“The Prince believes it,” said Men'Thor. “He says it's possible the Destroyer has read everything of Avonar's defense from him. As soon as he is able, he will come here to extract the Destroyer's plan from our prisoner. Then we'll rid the world of the demon son.”

“I don't grasp your logic, Men'Thor. We've had no luck flushing the Lords from Zhev'Na in all these years. If the boy has joined them in their stronghold, their position will be all but impregnable.”

“If such is the case, the Prince says he will lead the host of Avonar against Zhev'Na.” Doom and awe gave shape to Men'Thor's words, leaching the color from the lamplight.

“At last!” cried Radele. “His eyes are opened!” He strode briskly to the window and gripped the sill as if his own eyes might witness the new battle already engaged.

My spirit recoiled at Radele's glee.
The host of Avonar against Zhev'Na
. . . Our last resort. Every man, woman, and child to march on the desert fortress wielding sticks and swords and magic in a monstrous, mad crusade that would result in the annihilation of either the Lords or the Dar'Nethi. Ustele and his family had been championing such an impossible assault for generations. They had long proclaimed that it was only our hesitation—our doubt in our own power and our reluctance to commit ourselves—that had caused the war to last so long. But to buy our safety with slaughter . . . even in victory we would lose.

“This is madness, Men'Thor,” I said. “The Prince will never agree to such a plan. I know his true heart, and if I have to stand vigil and cast for a thousand nights, I will convince him to renounce this absurdity.”

“Let me tell you what is madness, Preceptor,” said Men'Thor. “A Prince who cannot tell you his name from one day to the next. A Prince whose loyalties are compromised to the verge of corruption, whose ‘true heart' is fixed on a mundane woman and a boy who gave his eyes and his soul to become the Fourth Lord of Zhev'Na. An Heir of D'Arnath who can no longer offer the most rudimentary service of his healing gift.”

His voice flowed with the grave sincerity he used with equal skill to notify a mother of her warrior daughter's death or to mediate a disagreement with his tailor. It was Men'Thor the Effector's unflappable rationality that had convinced many Dar'Nethi that he was better equipped to lead us than our passionate Prince.

“For a thousand years, Ven'Dar, we have allowed the Lords to taunt us and feed on our weakness, to keep us prisoned behind our walls and hiding in our little valleys as if this were the life Dar'Nethi were born to. Now they are a handsbreadth from putting their nurtured spawn in D'Arnath's chair, and you would not have our Prince fight them? You suggest that some mysterious conjunction of the planets has betrayed our safety, rather than the depraved child who swore undying loyalty to our enemies. And you dare call
our
course absurd!” Though neither volume nor timbre had changed, Men'Thor burst to his feet with the intensity of his speaking. “You are a good man, Ven'Dar, and Avonar will need your talent when her host ventures forth. But you serve us ill—to the point of treason—when you nurture the Prince's madness.”

While I blustered like a fool, thinking that yet another round of argument might make some difference, Men'Thor sighed deeply and laid his arm on Radele's shoulders. “I must go. My men hold the walls of Avonar tonight. I just thought I should share this news with you myself.”

“Thank you, Father. What do you suggest I do with the Preceptor? He was trying to pry information from the prisoner.”

Men'Thor gazed at me mournfully. “We will never convince Preceptor Ven'Dar of our position. The best we can do is prevent cowards of his ilk from influencing the Prince. Our duty is to keep D'Arnath's Heir focused on his proper business—the survival of Avonar, of the Vales, of Gondai, of the Bridge—until holy Vasrin sees fit to give us a sovereign worthy of D'Arnath's throne.”

Radele smiled broadly and embraced Men'Thor. “As you say, Father. The tide is turning.”

Radele stood in the doorway, watching his father descend the stairs. Then he turned back to face me. “My father is a wise man, Preceptor. Shall I demonstrate how we shall keep our mad Prince focused on his duty?” He was smiling.

Tired, distracted, envisioning our enemies tearing at our heart, I didn't answer him. And so I failed to note the movement of his hand. . . .

I was changed. Like a storm cloud suddenly bereft of rain and wind or a forest instantly deprived of trees, my life no longer had a purpose, and thus no meaning to be expressed in words. A hand took my arm and propelled me toward the doorway. My feet moved as they were directed.

“I'll have to put you with the stable boy, Preceptor. I don't like keeping the two of you together, but someone will need to feed and clean you. I'll have to dismiss your servants. We can't have them snooping about. And when the Prince interrogates the boy, I'll just make sure he has no memory of his cellmate.”

The hand led me down two flights of stairs and through the cellar, unbolted a door, and shoved me into the dark. I tumbled onto a dirt floor as the door closed behind me. Even as I grasped to hold them close, my thoughts detached themselves from the world of order and logic and drifted away.

“Who's there?” came a drowsy voice from the darkness. “I know someone's there. May as well answer me . . .”

So tired
. I curled up on the cool dirt and weariness closed my eyes.

Dull light beams pushed their way through the dusty air from a tiny grate close to the ceiling.

“Oh, cripes!” An outburst of words quite close to my ear. “They've done for you like they done for the Lady, haven't they? Demonfire! A right fine mess we're in now.”

A freckled face . . . a worried face, striped by the dusty light-beams . . . appeared in the air somewhere above me.

Jostling. Sitting upright now.

“Radele brought our breakfast and told me to see that you eat. Very kind he is.”

Bread in my hand.

“Well, come on then. Put it in your mouth.”

Dry . . . chewy . . .
Teeth and tongue, wits like dung . . .

“Wasn't supposed to work out this way. ‘Be fast,' he says. ‘It's got to be fast or we'll all be dead.' So now he's out there likely dying, while I'm rotting in a bin of turnips. They're all going to die if his plan don't work. What in this cursed world am I to do?”

A mechanical click . . . a buckle? a clock? a latch?
Disturbs the dancing dust motes . . .

“Come on, horse boy. Time for you to do your duties as the Prince has commanded you. By rights you should be banished to the Wastes as a traitor, though my father says you're only a pawn of the Destroyer. He claims that mundanes are incapable of any meaningful act such as treachery. I'll have to consider that. I think you should be dead.”

Clambering . . . crowding . . . bumping. A door slammed. Click. Silence. Colors, impressions, bits and pieces of memories, fragments of music, of song, of stories or poems, showers of words.
Words are my life. . . .
Drifting, pushing, and crowding one another this way and that, like gnats hovering above a pond. Swirling aimlessly like snowflakes in a circling wind . . . like dust motes in the light . . .

Directionless time . . . fading light . . . blindness creeping . . .
Fearful blindness . . . terrible . . . not that, not that, not that . . .

Click. Snap. Searing brightness. Air shifting. Stumbling boots. An avalanche of turnips . . . Sounds, movements, smells . . . nudging me . . . wandering . . .

“Move closer to the pipes, boy. I'll leave you loose enough you can tend the Preceptor, but we'll not have you getting away.”

Intrusion. Crowded. Arms . . . legs . . . boots . . . Click. Snap.
Darkness. Not blindness. Night.
Quiet breathing.
Lungs and tongues, inhale . . . exhale . . . smothering dark . . .

“Master Ven'Dar, can you hear me? Here, squeeze my hand if you can understand me.”

A nice hand. A working hand. Scars.
Don't raise your hand to me, young man!
So much clutter in my head, ready to fly away . . . A sister's ready hand, boxing my ears . . .

“Ah, curse all sorcery and them as practice it!”

The hand withdrew. Cold bread now. Bread in my mouth. Sour ale. Sleep tugging at my eyelids . . .

 

Light and darkness. Crowding, bumping, silence in the light.

Crowding, bumping, companionship in the dark. Hands in the dark. The cycle . . . whirling past.

 

“You know, Master”—the spoon popped between my lips yet again—“sometimes the way things happen just turns a man's head inside out. The first clue I get, and in the same breath I hear it's no use to us. I've been trying and trying to find out what was the list Radele used for the enchantment. Today I heard Radele talking to his Grandpa Ustele, the Preceptor, and at last I hear them talking about a list, and I'm thinking it might be the list as is needed to help the Lady and maybe I could somehow get away and find someone to come help her. But doesn't the old man say that
you're
probably the only one in Avonar as could say the ‘list of all the Dar'Nethi talents'? And your head is about as useful as one of these turnips.”

“Ah, plague on it! Now you're a mess. How am I supposed to feed you when I'm tethered to this pipe like a donkey? No way I could run off, anyway. Not with this magic they've put on me that make my feet like lead. Only reason I can talk is that they're just not scared of anything in my head. Not like with you and the Lady.”

Dampness . . . on and under me . . . earthen floor . . . soup mud . . . farmyard mud . . . stink . . . of onions and pigs . . .

“I looked about to see if you might have a bit of writing in the house that might be such a thing as this list, but I'm so ignorant, I couldn't even tell if it was the right one or not, nor yet what to do with it if I found it.” Cloth blotting. “I'm just not much good to nobody as doesn't have a mane and a tail, am I?”

The list of talents . . . the hundred . . . of all the hundred you received only one . . . in measure large or small . . . your gift . . . to be with you forever . . . to guide your Way . . .
Ven'Dar yn Cyran, proved a Word Winder this day! Fool of a boy, can't you feel it? Look what you've done . . . best learn a cast to repair the steps or father will flay you! So difficult to be good at it. You can't stay at home . . . not with power like yours . . . undisciplined whelp . . . Master Exeget will house you, as well as mentor you . . . prevent your killing anyone . . .
Exeget, cold as an ice cliff . . .
Be worthy of your people . . . be worthy of your gift . . . Truth is the foundation of a Word Winder's power . . . Try again . . . and again . . . You are the living essence of the Way. . . .
Mice scrabbling through the baskets of turnips and onions and carrots. Onions rotting.
Men rotting in the desert . . . dead in the Wastes . . . turnips and carrots . . .

 

Light and darkness. Crowding, bumping, silence in the light.

Crowding, bumping, companionship in the dark. “Can you hear me, Master? The Lady's fading. Every day I have to see her. For a man to breathe on her would kill her.”

 

Light and darkness. Click, snap. Breathing in the dark. A crash. Again. Fist hammering. “Shit, shit, shit! I can't believe they'd do it! And here I'm stuck in this cursed hole, no better off than I was in Zhev'Na. And you no more help than a two-legged mule.”

Pinching my shoulder. Rattling my teeth. “Listen to me, Master Ven'Dar. We've got to help the Lady. Radele is going to kill her before the Prince comes back here. He believes that when the Prince looks in my head, he'll find out where the young master is. But old Ustele told him that having the Lady around might stop the Prince from killing their son—just knowing what she would say about it if she could talk. The Prince has been in an awful battle, he says, one that's gone on for days, but he'll be coming here tomorrow. So we've no more time.”