Paulo

I never heard of nobody from Dunfarrie ever having an adventure. Old Jacopo, the Lady Seri’s friend and mine, who was killed by the Zhid-he’d been a sailor, and that was something that was talked about for a long time. But he told me about sailoring, and it didn’t sound no different from working in a stable or on a farm. Work all day and half the night, bad food and never enough, folks yelling at you to do this or do that. But I guess Jacopo loved sailoring the way some folks love farming, or the way I take to horse-keeping, and that made the difference. As for adventure, though, my travels with the Prince and the Lady Seri beat all he could tell, but I’d had just about all a person could take of it.

Thanks to the Prince, we’d come back safe to the green world all together again. I recognized the place where we came out of the doorway in the rock, even though it was daytime and spring instead of night and winter like it was when we’d gone through it before. We weren’t two leagues from Avonar-the dead one-and the cave in the rock was the one where we’d followed the Prince through the Gate-fire into the magic city. Kellea had guided us to the portal with her finding magic, and she and the Dulcé Bareil were waiting for us. I wanted to kiss every blade of grass, wallow in the streams, and eat Bareil’s cooking until my belly popped from it.

Saving the Prince had been a near thing. I just barely heard the Prince’s call in my head when I was combing Firebreather on that night, wondering if the young master was going to come for me or not. The Prince was half asleep-half dead actually-because the Lords had put a spell on everyone in the Gray House, sending them to sleep so they would never wake up. The Prince had figured it out almost too late. He’d managed to get loose of his chains with his new-grown magic, but I’d found him trying to drag himself out of the fencing yard and not making a good job of it at all. I had to get him away from the house and help him stay awake until the spell wore off. That’s why we were late and the young master ended up in such a wicked way. But between us all, we’d gotten loose of the Lords and through the Breach, and I’d never been so thankful for anything in my life.

I think I slept for a whole day straight through after Kellea dragged us through the Gate and the cave. I might have done longer-I’m good at sleeping-but the Prince woke me up. “Paulo, how are you this morning?” He was crouched down by me, whispering. He looked wicked tired. The Lady Serf was rolled in a blanket, sleeping close by the fire.

“I got no complaints. Except-”

“You’re hungry, right?”

I never knew somebody could smile with his whole self like the Prince, even when he was worn flat and worried.

“Are you looking in my head?”

“No need. Friends know these things about each other. Bareil has hot porridge over there, but once you’ve eaten, I need your help.” Never thought I’d hear a prince say that to me. Made me being hungry not near so important. “I need you to stay with Gerick a while.”

“How is he? Have you…?”

He shook his head. “I’ve not been able to help him yet. I’ve looked at him a bit and tried a few things, but I’ll need everything I can muster to attempt it. So, I’ve got to sleep for a while. But I don’t want him left alone. Seri isn’t going to wake for hours yet, and he doesn’t know Kellea or Bareil.”

“Sure, I’ll come. Is he awake then?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure he can sleep any more. He’s not eaten or drunk or anything since we’ve come here. And he’s spoken not a word. Hardly moved.” The Prince rubbed his head. “Get yourself something to eat, then come to us.”

They had pitched a tent under the trees to shelter the young master. Bareil said they were keeping it dark inside as he seemed a little easier in the dark. All I could see at first were two white lights. Then, as I got used to the dark, I saw him sitting up in the corner, huddled up to his knees, his hands clenched into tight fists. The white lights were the jewels they had given him for eyes.

The Prince sat beside him, watching, talking to him quiet-like. I didn’t know whether to say anything or not, but the Prince looked up and smiled. “Come in, Paulo. I’ve told Gerick that you’re going to be with him for a while. Bareil will wake me at sunset. Call me instantly if you need anything.” He laid his hand on the young master’s head. “We’ll take care of you,” he said, and then he left us alone.

I wasn’t sure whether I ought to talk or not. My usual is not to say anything unless I have to. More troubles can happen to you from talking too much than from not. But the young master and I had done some talking in Zhev’Na, and even though he was thinking he was going to be a Lord and had to make himself hard and alone so as not to hurt anybody by it, we had a time or two. If we’d both been born low, or both high, then one might say we’d come to be friends.

There at the last, when I thought he’d for sure turned himself evil and was killing the Prince with his magic, I went crazy and jumped him, expecting he would blast me to the ceiling-and half hoping he would. But he talked in my head, the way the sorcerers do, and told me to keep hitting him hard. He said that if the Lords were to get distracted then maybe the Prince would have a chance to stay alive. He kept telling me he was sorry, so sorry, that he hadn’t understood that V’Saro was the Prince until too late, and that he’d never meant for the Lords to kill V’Saro or me. He said he couldn’t hardly feel anything any more, except that he couldn’t let us die-the Prince and the lady… and me. While we wrestled there on that glass floor, I talked back to him the way Kellea had taught me. I said that none of us would leave him in that wicked place.

And I told him that if he could keep that one bit of feeling he had left, then maybe he could find all his other feelings again. I was as surprised as the Prince and the lady when he pulled me up off the floor and came with us. But now it looked like he was in a worse fix than he was before.

“I’m sorry about all this,” I said, squatting down beside him in the tent. “I thought you’d be all right if we got you out. Shows you what an ignorant horse-keeper knows.”

It was just odd talking to him when you could see only part of his real face, the rest of it that mask. He couldn’t blink or show that he heard you at all. But I went on babbling about horses and such stuff, thinking it might be as well if he had something to think on that wasn’t fearful. He was terrible afraid. So bad it was killing him. The Prince didn’t have to tell me that. The tent was busting with his fear.

When the Prince came back at sunset, he carried a handful of linen and a small leather case. I was eating some jack Bareil had brought me, and I offered to share it. The Prince shook his head. “I can’t yet. It’s that stuff they fed us-the graybread. It’s fixed it where anything else makes me sick. I’ll have to find something later.”

He set down the linen and his case. “Right now we have to take care of Gerick. Light the lamp, if you would.”

I did it.

“This won’t be easy, Paulo,” he said. “You’ll have to hold him still. I’m going to try to get the mask off, and I won’t be able to do it one-handed. Are you willing?”

“He saved my life back there. More than once.”

“Mine, too.”

He settled himself next to the young master and opened the leather case. I knew what was in it. It was his tools that he used when he healed my busted leg and put right the other one so that I hardly limped at all any more. I hoped he could do the same for his boy as he had for me.

“Remember, unless I tell you it’s all right, you mustn’t touch me at any time once we’re bound and I’ve said the invocation. If you need help, call Bareil. He’ll be waiting just outside.”

“You can trust me.”

He grabbed a handful of my hair and waggled my head with it, smiling. “I do. It’s why you’re here.” Then he got on his knees and spread his arms and said his prayer that always started his healing magic. “Life, hold. Stay your hand…”

Neither of us was expecting what happened when he cut the young master’s arm. I’d not heard such a terrible cry since the night I was sent to Zhev’Na and heard the Zhid putting the collars on the Dar’Nethi slaves. The Prince looked like someone had stuck a knife in his gut. But while I tied their arms together, he held his boy tight to keep him from hurting himself from his thrashing about. As soon as the knot was made and the words were said, the young master quieted.

I remembered how it had been when I was hurting so wicked and the Prince did this to me. White fire had blazed inside me, making me warm and easy, and the Prince talked to me every moment inside my head about how things were with me, so that I wasn’t afraid. I hoped the young master could feel it that way, too, but I knew the things wrong with him were a lot worse than a busted leg or two. I didn’t see how we were going to get that mask off. It was a part of his face, growed together with it. Made me sick to see it.

It took an awful long time. The Prince had closed his eyes so you might think he was asleep, except that he had the same fierce look as was on his face when he was sword fighting. The young master began to shake and moan, and the Prince spoke to me. “Hold him, Paulo. Just don’t touch me.”

And so I did. When the young master quieted a bit, the Prince had me take the jeweled pin out of his ear. It was burning hot when I took it off.

Sometime much later the Prince took his right hand and started to run it real slow around the edges of the gold mask. Over and over it he went, and after a time you could see the metal begin to separate from the young master’s face. Finally the Prince said, so soft that you almost couldn’t hear him, “Cut the binding.”

And when I’d done that, he said, “Dim the light and have one of the towels ready.”

I did that, too.

“Now hold his arms while I remove the mask. Carefully. Please, carefully.”

I’ve never seen such a fearful sight. There was nothing there in the young master’s eyeholes. When I’d seen his changes before, his eyes had turned dark in their color, but now he didn’t have eyes at all, nor anything else there that I could see-just dark holes. The Prince covered him up real quick, as soon as he had the mask off.