Seri

I had assumed we would be able to approach some Dar‘Nethi, one of the Preceptors, perhaps, who might help us develop a strategy to rescue Gerick. But the Dulcé knew of no one we dared trust with the secret of Gerick’s parentage, especially before the Prince was examined. And the shamefaced Dulcé confessed that, without some urgent prompting such as the threat of a compromised Heir, no Dar’Nethi would give a moment’s hearing to a mundane woman who wished to go to Zhev’Na, especially in this time of tenuous peace. Even Kellea, a Dar’Nethi unknown to anyone and inexperienced in her art, would be viewed as highly suspect, perhaps even a Zhid spy. For the moment we must proceed on our own.

I believed Bareil grieved sorely for Dassine and Karon. The full weight of events seemed to descend on him the day following the Prince’s departure. We had spent the morning discussing our plans to learn our way about the city. Bareil participated enthusiastically, dispensing advice, encouragement, information, and funds in the form of a cloth bag bulging with coins. But just about midday, as he was marking streets and shops on a sketch of Avonar, his voice trailed off and his hand began to tremble. He stepped away from our small table and rubbed his temple.

“What is it, Bareil? Are you all right?”

“Ah, my lady, I need- I must leave you.” Indeed his olive complexion appeared sickly and washed out. He grabbed his cloak from the hook by the door, his pack, and D’Natheil’s sword belt and weapons from where he had laid them carefully out of the way. “I should put these things where they’ll be safe. Careless of me to keep them here. I’ll be back… I don’t know when I’ll be back. Please excuse me.” With no more than this, he barged through the door and hurried down the passage.

We didn’t see him again until evening. He brought us a roast fowl and a thick, savory pottage of grain and vegetables, but he declined to eat with us. “I’m so sorry, my lady. I cannot remain here with you. Master Dassine’s house must be set to rights in case the Prince wishes to take possession of it again… or give it to someone else… I’ve asked a Word Winder to reinstate the house wards.” He seemed hesitant, unsure of himself as I had not seen him in our brief acquaintance. “I’ve arranged for you to stay here at the guesthouse as long as you wish. I would invite you to come to Master Dassine’s house-Master Dassine and the Prince would be honored-but you would surely be remarked.”

“Won’t you be in danger? You were almost killed…”

“Now that the Prince is with the Preceptors, I have little to fear. No one will bother a Dulcé without his madrisson. Nothing could be learned from such a one. Please… be assured I will help and advise you in these matters as I’ve promised.”

Over the course of the next few weeks, Kellea and I worked very hard to learn the common language of Avonar. I had picked up the rudiments from the Dulcé, Baglos, on our summer adventure in the days before Karon/D’Natheil had recovered his power of speech and understanding of Leiran, and so was able to gain a reasonable understanding of the spoken language in good order. But I stumbled badly when trying to speak it myself. Kellea, on the other hand, drew on her sorcerer’s power to become fluent within the first week. I was sorely jealous.

Paulo would not sit still for any teaching. He swore that his head had no more room for extra ways of saying the same thing, and spent our study hours exploring the streets and byways of Avonar.

As he had promised, Bareil came to the guesthouse every day, but only for an hour or two at a time. His demeanor was subdued and reticent, as if he weren’t sleeping well. He told Kellea how to find us clothing of colors and styles appropriate to Avonar. While only slightly different in style from ordinary skirts and tunics, bodices or breeches-the Dar’Nethi seemed to prefer loose-fitting or draped tunics and shirts rather than close-fitting-the garments were colored in vibrant, gem-like greens, reds, and blues that Leiran dyemasters had never discovered. And no Leiran or Vallorean seamstress could have imagined such materials or construction: fibers softer than silk, yet of such resilience that an Isker peasant could wear such a garment for a lifetime; stitches that were perfectly uniform and almost invisible; embroidery of such charming and complex design that the queen’s whole staff of needlewomen could not produce one sample of it in a year.

But such details, marvels at any other time, were lost on us as we drove ourselves to discover some way to retrieve Gerick from the heart of the Wastes. Together we reviewed all that Bareil had told about the stronghold of the Zhid and whatever he could supply of Dar’Nethi scholarship regarding the Lords. But we were unable to discover any way to transport ourselves to Zhev’Na, much less a way to wrest a child from the Lords’ clutches.

I demanded patience of myself and the others. Though my fears screamed for instant action, my brief encounter with the Zhid had taught me that I had no weapons to fight them face to face, and so far we had discovered nothing new that would give us the least chance of success. Bareil’s history lessons told us that the Lords wanted Gerick to come of age in their care, so they weren’t going to kill him. Kellea hinted that I was coldhearted to let my son languish in Zhev’Na, but I believed that if I were to save him, then, for the moment, I had to let him be. We would study and learn and find a way.

We heard no reliable news of the Prince. Rumors flew about Avonar that D’Natheil was dead or mad, that he was preparing for an assault on the Wastes, that he was laboring on the Bridge, or that he had gone back across the Bridge to lead the Exiles back to Avonar. Few Dar’Nethi took any of these stories seriously, Bareil told us. Most believed that the house of D’Arnath had its own ways that could not always be explained. Had not the present Heir been cloistered with Dassine for ten years, only to come forth to win a great victory and preserve the Bridge? Because of what D’Natheil had accomplished, every day brought a renewal of power that had been lost to the Dar’Nethi for centuries. The Zhid no longer attacked the walls of Avonar. Prominent citizens spoke of forming expeditions into the Wastes to rescue those Dar’Nethi still captive, but these ventures would require years of preparation. The Dar’Nethi had no more information about Zhev’Na than we did.

And so we worked and we studied and we listened, but truly made no progress at all.

On one evening more than six weeks after Karon had given himself to the Preceptorate, I was sitting before our little fire, studying a map Kellea had found in a bookshop. Though the map itself was not so old, the shopkeeper had claimed it was a rarity. Current maps delimited a vast proportion of Gondai as the unknown Wastes, showing physical features only in the narrow strip that bordered the living lands. But this map showed detailed names and locations of mountains and rivers, kingdoms, domains, and villages as they had existed before the Catastrophe.

I was alone as I pored over the inked scroll. Paulo was roaming the streets again. Bareil had taken Kellea to Dassine’s house to find a book that listed ancient place names and their descriptions. From the combination of the book and the map and Dassine’s tales of his captivity, we hoped to discover what place might have been transformed into the fortress of Zhev’Na. The night was quiet, and I was intent on my study, not daring to feel excited at our first possible breakthrough.

The door crashed open, filling the room with the scents of cold weather and woodsmoke. “You’ve got to come.” Paulo was ruddy-cheeked and breathing hard. Snow dusted his brown hair and dark wool cloak. “They’ve got the Prince at that Precept House-Master Exeget’s house. And your boy is there, too!”

I scribbled a message for Kellea and grabbed my cloak.

“I knew they’d take him there,” said Paulo, frost wreathing his face as we raced through the snow-blanketed streets. “Knew it from the first. So I found the place. Been watching it every day.”

We cut through a long-neglected bathhouse, our footsteps echoing on the broken paving as we circled empty pools littered with years of dead leaves and matted with snow. Moonlight poured through the fallen ceiling to reveal glimpses of richly colored mosaics peeking from behind masses of winter-dead vines. The path through the bathhouse gardens led us into a broad street of fine houses. Only a stitch in my side caused our steps to slow.

Avoiding the soft pools of lamplight that spilled from the paned windows alongside laughter, music, and the savory scents of roasting meat and baking sweets, we hurried toward a formal circle of trees at the end of the street. A high, thick wall, quite overgrown, and a severely plain iron gate with no hinges, no latches, no guards, and no obvious way to open it closed off the roadway. Through the gates and a large expanse of trees and shrubs, I glimpsed a huge house with many lighted windows on its lower floors. Signaling for quiet, Paulo led me into a narrow lane that skirted the wall.

At the back of the house, the stone wall yielded to a wooden building. The unmistakable scent of stables hung in the cold air trapped behind it. Paulo carefully removed three boards from the wall, leaving a hole just large enough for a person to crawl through. He went first, pulling the loose boards back into the hole once I had slithered into an empty stall filled with fragrant hay. Skirting the wide stableyard, we sped across a gravel lane and through a hedge, across a snow-covered lawn, and around a corner of the great house.

The addition of a massive chimney sometime after the original house was built had left a jutting corner in each side of the house. Near the bottom of the wall to the left of the chimney was a wide grate of the kind used to draw fresh air into an enclosed room. Yellow light and the sound of voices spilled out of the grate.

“However did you find this?” I whispered.

“Back when that Duke Baglos told us how wicked and stubborn the Prince was when he was a boy, he said how Exeget used to make the Prince spend time outside in the winter for punishment. Well, I’ve been throwed out in the winter a deal of times, so’s I thought where would a fellow go to get warm if he was out like that? Stables, maybe, or in a corner like this where he could get a look at what was going on in the house.”