Ven'Dar lifted his hand from Karon's brow. After dispatching his Dulce companion back across the Bridge to prepare for our arrival, the prince had cast a winding, an enchantment shaped from the nuances of words, to send Karon to sleep without the ajuria for the first time in a month. "Unfortunately, he cannot be in this state when I take him across the Bridge. As we've found out, strange things happen when minds lie fallow during a Bridge crossing. And I am not— Well, walking the Bridge is difficult of late."
"I'll give him ajuria then," said Kellea, who was settling the blankets around Karon's wasted body. "He'll need something if you're going to move him."
"No. Whether induced by enchantment or potions, he cannot be asleep."
"I can take care of it," said Gerick, quietly. "I can't cure this disease, but I can help him bear it for long enough to cross the Bridge and get him wherever he needs to go."
"So be it," said Ven'Dar. "We'll let him rest through the night—and you as well, lad—then at sunrise we'll go. Strange for all of us to be together again. Would it were a happier occasion."
As the stars pricked the deep blue sky outside our windows, Gerick and Paulo spread pillows and blankets by the hearth, Kellea retired to her room, and I escorted Ven'Dar to the bedchamber upstairs. It had occurred to me, even as the flurry of greetings flowed, that Ven'Dar's arrival four months earlier than usual was not truly a response to my nightly wishing. Even the Dar'Nethi ability to speak in the mind could not span worlds. And so, once the matters of towels and washing water and other rituals of hospitality were taken care of, I paused at the bedchamber door and broached the question. "So tell me, my lord prince, what's brought you here? If the power of my desires can reach all the way to Avonar, I'd like to know of it."
Ven'Dar stood at the window I had opened to air the room. "Only a curiosity. I was hoping Karon might have some advice for me. We've had a bit of interesting news in the realm." He turned his back on the window, his arms folded across his breast. "But for now all that must wait. Don't trouble yourself." No amount of wheedling gained me any more than that.
Karon wуke before dawn, before anyone else in our suddenly crowded house was stirring. "Who is this lovely wench who comes to warm my bed? I thought they all had been refused." His cold fingers traced the line of my cheek.
"I've set myself to guard against these intruding maidens," I said, trying to waken my tingling arms and ease out of the bed without jarring him. Unable to sleep, suddenly sensing the too-rapid approach of the inevitable, I had slipped in beside him. "Now what of you? How does Ven'Dar's remedy?"
"It lingers a bit. And while I still benefit from it, I'd like to see Martin's gardens once more before I go."
I fumbled in the dark to find his shoes, then helped Karon sit up and get them on. I threw a heavy cloak over his shoulders, and we picked our way around the sleeping Gerick and Paulo, emerging into the predawn stillness. The seasons had gone backward. Instead of the scents of grass and fading lilacs, a frosty mist floated over the garden.
Halfway across a grassy square between two bowers of blighted roses, Karon stopped and closed his eyes, a smile, not a grimace, crossing his features. "How I love this place," he said. "Cold or not . . . feel the life. Smell it. Taste it. You know, sometimes I feel the others here—Martin, Julia, Tanager. I wonder . . ." Holding his arms tight about his middle as if willing the pain to stay away a little longer, he lowered himself to a stone bench. "I've thought it could be that L'Tiere is not so far away. Perhaps the boundary between this life and the next is less formidable than the Breach, and we can find our way back to the places we love most. Who knows? I may come back here again."
I wrapped my arms about his wasted shoulders, unable to answer. Ven'Dar found us there as dawn touched the eastern sky.
"Time to go home, my friend," said Ven'Dar. "Are you ready?"
"I don't promise to be fast. No chance you've a winding to put all but my mind to sleep?"
"Sadly not. But you'll not be alone." He motioned toward Gerick, who had just stepped out of the garden door, conferring quietly with Paulo.
Paulo was drinking something that wreathed his face with steam, and Kellea soon came to us with a similar mug. She sat down beside Karon. "You're not leaving before breakfast," she said in mock severity, holding it to his lips. "Only a little to warm you on your way."
After two sips, Karon took her hand, kissed it, and pressed it to his forehead, a gesture of affection from the land of his youth. "I'll never forget, dear Kellea. Never. Go back to your children and your good sheriff and live in joy."
While Kellea embraced each of us in turn, Karon looked up bleakly at Gerick and Paulo. "If I'm to do this, I'm afraid I'll need an extra hand or two."
"We've come up with a better way. Maybe a little easier on you," said Gerick, hesitating. "If you'll permit me . . ."
Karon understood immediately. "Are you sure?"
Gerick nodded. And so, when Karon signaled he was ready, Gerick laid an arm about Paulo's shoulders. As the first pink and orange sunbeams bathed the garden, Gerick's body slumped, saved from falling by Paulo's firm grip around his waist.
Karon shuddered and sat up a little straighter. Then we stood, and his voice sounded stronger than I'd heard in weeks. "Lead us, lord prince. My wife and my son— my two sons—bear me upon their shoulders, and I would not burden them longer than need be."
Kellea stood watching in the garden, her hand raised in farewell. Her image faded as our strange procession passed into the sunrise. Ven'Dar walked in front, his fair hair shimmering in the light, and behind him a gaunt Karon wrapped tight in his black cloak, leaning on my arm, Gerick's strength enabling him to bear each step. Paulo came next. Over his shoulder he'd slung the slender body that belonged to his best friend and his king, whose soul was temporarily housed elsewhere. A strange procession setting out to journey along the strangest of roads.
Chapter 2
D'Arnath had built the Bridge after a magical cataclysm had driven his world of Gondai and the human world apart, separating them with a chaotic void the Dar'Nethi called the Breach. The Breach upset some balance in the universe that drained away enough of the human world's excessive passions that we would not destroy ourselves, while fueling the extraordinary magic—the Hundred Talents—of the Dar'Nethi. Somehow the Bridge maintained this balance, rescuing my world from the consequences of unmitigated violence, and preserving the very souls of the Dar'Nethi, which were inextricably entwined and illuminated with their sorcery. This did not mean that crossing between the two worlds was ever easy.
It seemed so at first on the day we took Karon back to Gondai. The dreadful visions of the Breach seemed to have lost their fearsome reality since the last time I had crossed. The rivers of gore, the bottomless caverns, the legions of the dead, all a traveler's foulest nightmares and deepest fears brought to life in the formless matter of chaos, had less substance than the monsters a child sees in the shifting clouds of a stormy sunset. It was good to think these changes had come about because of Karon and Gerick and some healing that their victory over the Lords had brought to the world.
Yet by the time we stepped beyond the wall of white fire into Gondai, the relentless barrage of enchantment had left my spirit in tatters. Karon was shattered. His breathing was harsh and shallow, and Ven'Dar and I could scarcely keep him upright.
With a grunt of effort, Paulo leaned against a smooth column and set Gerick's feet on the ground, allowing the pillar of rose and gray stone to help support Gerick's limp body.