Guardians of the Keep Read online

  I had been an angry nine-year-old when courtiers dragged me away from the grimy comfort of a palace guard firepit and took me to the Precept House, the large, austere building that housed the meeting chamber of the Preceptorate and served as the residence of its head. On that night Master Exeget had announced that, as my father and brothers were all dead, I was to be raised up to be Heir, ignorant, filthy beast that I was, no better than a dog, fed on the scraps from the soldiers on the walls.

  No one had told me that D’Seto, my last living brother, a dozen years older than me, and the most dashing, talented, and skillful of princes, had been slain by the Zhid. He was the only one of the family who had ever had a kind word for me, and all my awkward, childish striving, played out in alleyway throne rooms and stableyard sword fights, had been to be like him. Exeget did not grant me even the simple courtesy of believing that I might grieve for my brother. Instead he spent an hour telling me how unlike D’Seto I was. I hated Exeget from that moment, for he made me believe it. There was no justice in a universe that infused the blood of kings in such as me, he said, while condemning nobler spirits to lesser roles. Only strict discipline and rigorous training might improve me, and so I was not to return to the palace, but live with him in the Precept House. He had crammed his red face into mine and sworn that if his efforts failed and I was not made worthy of my inheritance, I would not live to disgrace it.

  And so, on this morning as the Preceptors gathered to inspect me, I could not look at Exeget without loathing. I began my greetings at the other end of the line, hoping to find the right words to say by the time I got to him. Moving from one of the Preceptors to the next, I turned my palms upward as a symbol of humility and service. Each in turn laid his or her hands on mine, palms down, accepting what I offered, kneeling before me in honor of my office. As I raised them up, one by one, each greeted me in his or her own way.

  The giant Gar’Dena, a powerful, prosperous worker of gems, wheezed and grinned, for I gave him more than a princely touch to help raise his bulk from his genuflection. I hoped no more sorcery would be needed, for the simple assistance had used up my small reserve of power. Once standing at his full height, dwarfing everyone in the room, Gar’Dena straightened his red silk tunic, blotted his massive forehead with a kerchief the size of a sail, and hooked his thumbs into an elaborately jeweled belt. “Ce’na davonet, Giré D’Arnath!” All honor to you, Heir of D’Arnath. This traditional greeting, which he pronounced in an ear-shattering bellow, was deeply respectful. Cheered by his generous spirit, I moved down the row.

  Ce’Aret, an ancient, wizened woman with the face and humor of a brick, poked at my cheek with a sharp finger and snorted, whether in disbelief or general disapproval I didn’t know. I gripped her finger and returned it to her firmly, which didn’t seem to please her at all. Ce’Aret had taken on herself the duty of ferreting out those who secretly aided our enemies. Everyone feared her.

  Ustele was almost as old as Ce’Aret, but his quick and incisive probe of my thoughts belied any impression I might have had of diminished faculties. Touching my mind without consent was an unthinkable offense, an invasion of my privacy that would permit me to summarily dismiss him from the Preceptorate, if not banish him from Avonar . . . assuming I was accepted as the true Prince. No one in the room, save perhaps the Dulcé, would have failed to register it. If I wished to retain any semblance of respect from the others, I could not ignore such an attempt.

  “This day’s grace I will give you, Ustele, because you were my grandfather’s mentor. But no more. Age grants you no privilege to violate your Prince, because age has clearly not dimmed your gifts. The Wastes await those who take such liberties. Be warned.” To my relief, my voice neither croaked nor wavered.

  The old man curled his lip, but withdrew. Dassine’s satisfaction wafted through the air from behind me like scented smoke. In truth, my thoughts were in such confusion, no one could have learned anything from them.

  Y’Dan, a thin, dry stick of a man, would not rise when I touched his shoulder. He shook his hairless brown skull vigorously, chewed on a bony knuckle, and refused to look me in the eye. “My lord”—he dropped his voice to a whisper so that I had to bend close to his mouth to hear—” listen, my lord. I beg you listen.” He wanted me to read his thoughts.

  I nodded, uneasy, for this was an act I had not been capable of performing as D’Natheil, and that custom had strictly forbidden in my other life. But the Preceptorate had been told that whatever I had done to restore the Bridge had changed me, so I left off worrying and opened my mind to him.

  . . . murder . . . conspiracy . . . treachery . . . your forgiveness, my lord.. . . . we did not know you . . . our faith lost . . . the Zhid among us . . . we thought it was the only way. . . . Searing, consuming guilt. Impossible to sort out the flood of incoherent confession that accompanied it. Who had been murdered? My father perhaps or my brothers? What was the conspiracy of which he spoke?

  Confused and wary, I put my finger to his silent lips, telling him to stop. “Another time,” I said. “I’ll hear you in private.” Sometime when I knew what he was talking about.

  Madyalar looked more like a fishwife than a Preceptor of Gondai. Rawboned and red-cheeked, her gray hair tangled, she stood almost as tall as I. The soft-hued stripes of her billowing robe kept subtly shifting their colors, confusing the eye. Madyalar had been an Examiner when I was a boy, one who supervised Dar’Nethi mentoring relationships such as mine with Exeget. Though I had counted no one as a friend in those days, she had fought a running battle with Exeget over my care. That lent her a bit of grace in my sight, though, in truth, the course she had espoused was no more dignified than Exeget’s, only less violent. She had declared that the only humane path was to teach me enough of duty, manners, and cleanliness that I could father a new Heir as soon as possible.

  When she stood up after her genuflection, she probed me, not illicitly with her mind as Ustele had done, but with warm, rough hands that quickly and firmly traced every contour of my face.

  “I hope I have exceeded your expectations, Mistress Madyalar,” I said to her. I started to add, “even though I’ve produced no son.” But in a moment’s unsettling clarity, I realized that I didn’t know whether I had fathered any children. I—Karon—was forty-two years old, so Dassine had told me. Twenty of those years were still missing. The thought was disconcerting, one I could ill afford in my present situation. I closed my eyes for a moment, afraid the world might disintegrate.

  Madyalar drew me back. “You are no longer the boy I examined for so many years, my lord.”

  My eyes flew open. She had a curious smile on her face.

  “My bruises tell me that I am.”

  She cast her eyes slightly to her right where Exeget was studiously gazing out of the window. “I don’t doubt that. Childhood bruises sting long after their discolor has faded. Though I would like to avoid contributing to Dassine’s inflated opinion of himself, you seem changed for the better. Whether it is the old devil’s skill in teaching or merely the fact that he saved your life until you matured on your own, the air is quiet about you now, whereas before it was a constant tumult. You bear many burdens that you did not when we saw you last, and you carry them with a strength that is different from that you displayed as a youth. And you have gray in your hair, Your Grace.”

  “Years will do that.” No sooner had I said the words than I knew I’d made a mistake. The tension in the room drew tighter, and the dozen calculating eyes fixed on me widened.

  “True,” said a puzzled Madyalar. “But you must tell us how a few months can work such an alteration.”

  Although I remembered nothing of D’Natheil’s life since I was twelve, Dassine had told me that it had only been a few months since I—D’Natheil, a prince of some twenty-odd years of age—had been sent onto the Bridge a second time, crossing into the mundane world on a mission I could not remember. These people had witnessed my departure. But the details of that journey were embedded in
the lost years of one life and buried under twenty missing years of another. Spirits of night . . . what had happened to me?

  My tongue stumbled onward. “I’ve worked hard at improving myself and continue to do so.” Without further word, I moved on to Exeget.

  Permit no questioning. Keep silent. Satisfy them. Get rid of them. These commands burst into my head as if I had thought them myself. Concentrate, fool. That command was my own.

  “Our hopes and good wishes are with you, my lord Prince”—Madyalar spoke quietly to my back—“and, of course, the wisdom of Vasrin.”

  I nodded, hoping I hadn’t offended her.

  By an immense act of will I did not flinch when Exeget laid his perfectly manicured hands on mine. I knew he watched for it, hoped for a hint of cowering to demonstrate that he had power over me. For the greater part of the three years I’d spent in his custody, I had devoted my entire being to making sure he never received such a demonstration. I had never feaerd him, only despised him, but his hands had been heavy. Neither cold nor warm, neither soft nor hard, no roughness nor other mark of age marring their smooth perfection. He took great pride in his hands, and had always required a servant to bathe and care for them after he beat me. In those vile years he had claimed that he could allow no one else to take on the onerous task of my discipline, as only a parent or mentor was permitted to chastise a child of my rank. But his apologetic disclaimers had not deceived me. He had enjoyed it immensely.

  I confess I left him kneeling longer than the others, not so much to prove I could, but for the simple reason that I didn’t want to touch him again. Perhaps he felt the same. I had scarcely brushed his shoulder when he popped to his feet.

  “We rejoice, my lord, in the happy outcome of your journey.” A nice sentiment, belied by his demeanor that expressed little of rejoicing and much of suspicion and arrogance.

  I kept my mouth closed and my expression blank.

  He spoke as much to the others as to me. “Master Dassine says that your ordeal in the mundane world has been a great strain, requiring a period of withdrawal from your duties, duties you’ve scarcely begun. Will you require ten more years in Dassine’s care before your people have the benefit of your service?”

  “I’ll do whatever I think best, Master Exeget,” I said. To speak in calm generalities with a straight face is much easier when one is absolutely ignorant. An advantage in a confrontation such as this. It’s difficult for barbs and subtle insinuations to find their mark when the expected mark is missing.

  “Whatever you think best? Please tell us, my lord Prince, what is it you think best? For more than three months we have sought your counsel and have been rudely put off by our brother, Dassine. For ten years before your journey, you failed to seek any counsel but that of this same man, and we were not allowed to speak with you unsupervised. You had no experience before you left us and have had no experience since your return. What assurance can you give us that your ideas of what is best have any foundation in reality? Why does Dassine keep you hidden?”

  Ce’Aret and Ustele had not moved a step, yet I felt them close ranks, flanking Exeget like guardian spirits. “The Heir of D’Arnath is the servant of his people, yet he does not even know his people, nor do his people know him,” croaked Ce’Aret. “As Madyalar says, you are much changed. I wish to understand it.”

  “Perhaps Dassine has hidden him all these years so we would not know him,” said Ustele. “Can any of us say that this is, in fact, D’Natheil?”

  The room fell deadly silent. Expectant. I knew I should say something. What sovereign would permit such an accusation? But my head felt like porridge, leaving me unable to summon a single word of sense.

  “Master Ustele, what slander do you speak?” To my astonishment it was Exeget who took up my cause, donning the very mantle of reason. “Who else would this be but our own Prince? True, his body has aged, and his manner is not so . . . limited . . . as it was. But he has fought a battle on the Bridge—done this healing that has preserved and strengthened the Bridge and given us hope. Such enchantments could surely change a man.”

  “As a boy he was touched by the Lords. We all knew it,” snapped Ce’Aret. “Never did this prince demonstrate any gift of his family. He killed without mercy and did not care if the victim was Zhid or Dar’Nethi or Dulce.”

  “And where was it the beastly child finally found some affinity?” asked Ustele. “With our brother Dassine who had just returned from three years—three years!—in Zhev’Na. Dassine, the only Dar’Nethi ever to return from captivity. Dassine, who then proclaimed wild theories that contradicted all our beliefs, saying that our determination to fight the Lords and their minions was somehow misguided, that training our Prince in warfare was an ‘aberration. ’ And when he could not convince us to follow his way of weakness, of surrender, he took the Heir and hid him away. What more perfect plot could there be than for the Lords of Zhev’Na to corrupt our Prince?”

  The others talked and shouted all at once: denials, affirmations, and accusations of treason.

  “Impossible!” shouted Exeget, silencing them all. “D’Natheil has done that for which we have prayed for eight hundred years! The Gates are open. He has walked the Bridge, healed the damage done by the Lords and the chaos of the Breach. We have felt life flow between the worlds. He has foiled the plots of the Lords that would have destroyed the Bridge. All we ask is to understand it. His duty is to lead us to the final defeat of the Lords of Zhev’Na and their demon Zhid. We only want to hear how and when that will come about.”

  I couldn’t understand why Exeget was defending me. Their arguments had me half convinced.

  “We’ve all heard the rumors of what passed in the other world,” said Ce’Aret. “That D’Natheil allowed three Zhid warriors to live, claiming to have returned their souls to them. That the only ones slain in that battle were the loyal Dulcé Baglos and a noble swordsman from the other world. Has anyone seen these Zhid who were healed? Was D’Natheil successful? Perhaps the victory at the Gate resulted from the sacrifice of another of the Exiles and not D’Natheil at all. Perhaps the Prince failed at his real task—his traitorous task—of destroying the Bridge.”

  The accusation hung in the air like smoke on a windless day. Gar’Dena’s broad face was colorless, his eyes shocked. “Tell them these things are not true, my lord,” he said softly. Exeget spread his arms wide, waiting for my answer. Madyalar’s face was like stone. Even Y’Dan’s head popped up. They were all waiting. . . .

  Permit no questioning. Keep silent. Dassine stood just behind me. Though his fury beat upon my back like the summer sun, he held his tongue. No one spoke aloud. Yet from every one of the Preceptors came a similar pressure, the throbbing power that was so much more than spoken anger or demanding trust, the battering insistence that I speak, that I explain, that I condemn myself with truth or expose myself with lies or justify the faith some held in the blood that filled my veins. These seven were the most powerful of all Dar’Nethi sorcerers. I felt myself crumbling like the wall of a besieged citadel. I had to end it.

  “Master Exeget, I’ll not explain myself to you . . .” I began, wrapping my arms about my chest as if they might keep me from flying apart.

  “You see!” said Ce’Aret, shaking her finger at me. “Dassine has made us a tyrant!”

  “. . . until I have completed my time of recovery with Master Dassine. Then I will appear before the Preceptorate to be examined. If you find that I am indeed who I claim to be, and you judge me worthy of my heritage, then I will serve you as I have sworn to do, following the Way of the Dar’Nethi as holy Vasrin has freed us to do. If you find me wanting in truth or honor or ability, then you may do with me as you will.”

  Dassine exploded. “My lord, they have no right! You are the anointed Heir of D’Arnath!”

  I turned on him, summoning my convictions as a flimsy shield against his wrath. “They have every right, Dassine. They—and you are one of them—are my people, and I will have only trus
t between us.”

  I believed what I said, and though it might have been wise to press the point with Gar’Dena and Madyalar and even Y’Dan, I had no strength to argue. I had to get out of that room. “I cannot say how long until I am recovered fully. I ask you all to be patient with me and to tell . . . my people . . . to be of good heart. Now, I bid you good morning.” I turned my back on them and fled.

  The Dulcé opened the door for me. I believed I saw a glint of humor in his almond-shaped eyes. Unable to shuffle my bare feet fast enough to suit me, I made my way along the route we had come. The stark simplicity of my little cell welcomed me—the barren stone that offered no variation to the eye, that kept the air quiet and stable and blocked out the clamoring questions that had followed me down the passage. My only evidence that I fell onto the bed before going to sleep was that I was in the bed that afternoon when Dassine roused me to begin our work again.

  CHAPTER 6

  Many days passed before Dassine and I had the time to sort out what had happened at the meeting with the Preceptors. He allowed no slacking off in our work, and my journeys of memory were increasingly troubling, leaving me no strength to spare for politics.

  I was reliving the time when the Leiran conquerors had learned that sorcerers lived in Avonar—the Avonar of the mundane world, the Vallorean city where I was born. By virtue of my position at the University in Yurevan, I had escaped the subsequent massacre. But I had immediately abandoned my studies and gone into hiding, telling my few unsuspecting mundane friends that I had tired of academe and was off to seek my fortune in the wider world.

  Rather than traveling in the spheres my colleagues might have expected, I had melted into the poorest of the masses haunting the great cities of the Four Realms, taking almost any kind of job that would feed me, intending to bury my former life for as long as it took for people to forget me. I dared not use the most minuscule act of sorcery. Such self-denial was physically painful as well as mentally distressing. Yet I was a Healer, and inevitably I would come across those who needed my gift. I could not refuse them. So I stayed nowhere long, wandering in the farthest reaches of Leire and Valleor, Kerotea and Iskeran, and into the strange wild lands beyond. It had been a fearful time, and I could not shake an ever-present foreboding when I returned to Dassine’s candlelit lectorium.