I brushed my hand against my face. It wasn’t snow, but straw. The cold was only the familiar dry chill of the desert night. I burrowed deeper in the straw, determined to find out if I made it across the lake, but a straw pricked my face again, and it was not the wind that whispered outside the bars of my cell. “Ssst.”
I glanced around before I moved. No one stood in the aisle between the rows of cells, and the cells to either side of me were empty. With so few of us, they could keep us wide apart. So the sound was from outside the pen. Shifting sluggishly toward the outside, as anyone might while sleeping, I peered through the close-set bars… straight into a grimy, freckled face that split into a grin as I’d not seen in a lifetime.
“Blazes! I knew it. Holy, great damn! I knew it all along… it’s you!”
“Paulo!” Our exclamations were muffled whispers, but no less filled with astonishment.
“I knew you weren’t dead. We both knew it, though we didn’t say it to nobody, not even to each other… and then today, when I saw you save that fellow’s life… blazes!”
“You were the third. You and Seri.”
“You know she’s here, then?”
“I saw her. Just for a moment. Does she know-?”
“She don’t know you’re here-nor me. They weren’t going to send me, but I made ‘em do it. Were you the one supposed to give the signal then-to take us out?”
“Things didn’t go quite right.”
“Guessed not.” He paused for a moment, a rosy flush dousing his freckles. “Except for being here like this… are you all right? Together in your head?”
“I remember everything.”
“All of before I knew you… and when you showed up in Dunfarrie… and this time, when you fixed my legs and all?”
“Everything.”
“Blazes.” His gaze fell to the ground, but not before I saw innocent awe overtake him.
“I remember Sunlight, now. You told me you’d taken care of him, but I couldn’t figure how you had come to have a horse of mine. You’re the first one from those times-from our world-the first one I get to meet again. Extraordinary, isn’t it?”
“Makes my head hurt to think on it.”
“Mine, too.”
We were both quiet for a moment. Life was such a wonder.
Then Paulo screwed up his face, lifted his gaze, and took up again, evidently deciding that awe of royalty or dead sorcerers come back to life was minor beside the business of the moment. “So what went wrong? How’d you get in this fix?”
“The only way I could get into Zhev’Na was as a slave. Once everyone believed I was dead, our allies put a mask on me-an enchantment that made me believe I was someone else-so I could pass the initial interrogations and be brought here. The man who was supposed to help me when I arrived-to remove the mask and leave me free-died unexpectedly. Only when I caught a glimpse of Seri a few weeks ago did I finally remember who I was and what I was supposed to be doing. But of course, penned up like this, I can’t do much of anything.”
His gaze roamed the row of cages. “Maybe I can steal the key and let you out.”
“Don’t! It’s too risky-and not of any use. As long as I wear this collar, I’ve not a scrap of power. Even if we could get Seri and Gerick, we’ve no way out of Ce Uroth, because I can’t take us.”
“I could get something to cut off the thing, maybe.”
“I wish you could. More than you’ll ever know. But sorcery is the only way to take it off.”
“Well, I’ll think on it. We’ll figure some way.”
“You mustn’t put yourself at risk, Paulo. I- Listen to me. To know that you’re here… with her… You have to keep yourself safe. Do you understand? So there will be someone…”
“I understand. But nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“I’m not exactly in a secure profession.”
A guard relieved himself just outside the cell across from me, close enough to remind me of our precarious position.
“Keep yourself safe, Paulo. It’s so good to see you, to know a faithful friend is nearby, but you must stay away from me. There’s nothing to be done here. Not yet.”
“Well, you just watch yourself. I’m going to take care of this. You’ll see.”
He slipped away as quietly as he had come. I sat for a long time watching the flickering lights of the Zhid forges across the dark courtyard, pondering the wonders of a universe that would place its future so confidently in the hands of an illiterate fourteen-year-old boy. For the first time since Dassine’s death, I went to sleep with a smile on my lips.
CHAPTER 38
Gerick
Something strange was happening in my house. Ever since Mellador had killed that slave to heal my knee, I had taken care of my own injuries. I could ignore scrapes, cuts, and bruises. Even gashes and sprains went away of themselves eventually. But one day a sparring partner got in a lucky slash and gave me a deep cut in the upper arm. I got back to my room before anyone noticed, and dismissed my slaves, saying I was going to practice sorcery for a while. I didn’t want them telling anyone I was injured.
I wished I could use the things Notole had taught me about slowing bleeding or making wounds not hurt, but that is one of the impossible things about sorcery. You can’t lay compulsions on yourself or do yourself an injury with enchantments, but that means you can’t heal yourself either, even if you have the skill for it. So I ripped up a clean towel and tied it about my arm. To get the rag tight enough with only one hand and my mouth was hard. I put on a thick shirt and a dark-colored tunic that wouldn’t show any blood, and hoped my arm would stop hurting and stop bleeding before I gave myself away.
When I came back from my hand combat practice after all that, I felt light-headed, sweating and cold at the same time. The pain in my arm had eased to a dull ache, but the towel and my shirt were soaked with blood. I tried again to tie up the wound, put on a different shirt and tunic, burned the bloody ones, and went to my riding lesson, but I had to cut the lesson short before I fell off the horse. I screamed at my riding master that his lessons were too hard.
I returned to the house just after sunset. All I wanted was to get to my bed, but I kept finding myself in the wrong room. When I finally came to the stairs, I made it only halfway to the first landing before I had to rest. Then I couldn’t seem to get up again. I thought for a bit about calling my slaves back. Sefaro would help. But then I remembered that Sefaro was dead. Dead because of me, like all the others. I couldn’t ask anybody to help me. And I had to be careful or the Lords would know everything; to keep up my barriers took concentration.