Vruskot seethed and blustered, but Gerick refused to dismiss him. “You are here to protect me, warrior, lest this Dar’Nethi filth make some attempt to harm me. I trust you to destroy him in such a case.”
The hour grew late. When the slavehandler came to retrieve Gerick’s sparring partner, Gerick told him to return later. But before too much more time had passed, the young slave began to stumble, and I suggested that Gerick would be better served to save him for the next day.
Gerick agreed and promptly ordered Vruskot to return the slave boy to the pen. “While you do that, I’ll secure this slave for the night,” he said.
Vruskot growled, but obeyed. As soon as he was gone, leaving only the two guards in the distant corners of the walled enclosure, Gerick knelt beside me. He linked my wrists together, shortened my ankle hobbles, and tightened the tether chains at wrist, neck, and ankle, securing me firmly to the wall. “I’ve found a way, but I can’t do it until tomorrow night,” he whispered.
“Any time is fine-” For the first time, I got a close look at his face. Spirits of night… He averted his face quickly, knowing that I saw. “How do they do it?” I said softly.
“That’s not your business. I just need to know what you plan to do if I should set you free. I don’t want you interfering with me.”
“Are there plans for you to see Seri… the lady?”
“Yes. They expect me to kill her.”
Dear gods. “Tell me when and where, and I’ll be there,” I said, struggling to stay rational. “Make sure Paulo is with me, too, and I’ll take us all out of Zhev’Na.”
“Every way out is controlled by the Lords. You’ve no chance whatsoever.”
“I know of a way. That’s why I was sent.”
He squinted at me, but it was very dark, and I didn’t think he could see very well. Just then, a gate squeaked and crashed shut again. When Vruskot strode from the stone arch into the yard, Gerick was leaning against the water barrel, casually taking a sip from the dipper. “I’ve tightened the slave’s bonds, warrior, but I want you to make sure of him. Instruct the Drudges to provide his normal food and drink, and do what you can to ensure he doesn’t foul the training ground.”
Vruskot bowed and did an excellent job of ensuring I could not move a finger’s breadth in any direction. On that long, cold night, I dreamed of my Avonar, of taking my son climbing to the snowy summit of Karylis and watching the light return to his terrible eyes.
Two Zhid stood at attention in the fencing yard throughout the next day. The Gray House was silent. No one entered the enclosure. I dozed fitfully in the wicked heat.
Sometime after nightfall, a quiet thud from the dark corner of the yard woke me with a start. One of the guards had slumped into a heap in the dirt. The second guard was in the process of toppling, even as I jerked upright.
“V’Saro”-the whispered call was from Gerick-“say something.”
“Anything in particular?” I matched his quiet tone.
The boy stepped hesitantly from the darkest shadows. “Again.”
“What’s the matter?”
He stepped slowly across the yard, only to stumble over the chains that attached my feet to the wall. Tightly bound as I was, I couldn’t catch him, but only squirm enough to cushion his fall and keep his face from hitting my knees. He ended up draped across my lap.
He wriggled backwards and got up to his knees. The Lords had been at him again. He was strung taut, quivering like a bowstring, and his eyes had terrible black centers, worse than before. His eyelids drooped heavily. I didn’t believe he could see anything at all.
“Take this,” he said, depositing in my hand a small, thick-walled ceramic cup-a crucible, filled with coarse gray powder. From a pocket in his tunic he pulled another crucible, slightly larger and lined with silver. “This won’t be pleasant, but you must be silent.”
“Tell me what they’ve done to you. Before you go any further. I can’t let you-”
“I hear from you and the Leiran boy that the only way to save my mother’s life is to set you free. I don’t believe it and I don’t trust you, but I’ve been wrong about everything in my life, so why should I expect to be right this time?” He knelt between my legs and reached around my head, fumbling at my collar, carefully avoiding the triggers that would make me convulse. “I’ve obtained the knowledge, the power, and the materials I need to neutralize your collar. I’ve very little time, but if I start right now, then perhaps I can manage it, so I would suggest you stay still.” His cold fingers paused at the top of the seal. “Be ready.”
“Do it,” I said, feeling his enchantment taking shape, growing huge and terrible, cutting first into my flesh, and then into my mind, and then into my soul like a fiery razor.
I sank deep into myself. Silence… hold… protect your son who has mortgaged his sight and his soul to set you free…
Slowly, relentlessly, Gerick moved his fingers down the seal, melting it away and letting the scalding, foul stuff dribble into his silver-lined vessel. My face was buried in his chest, I, who should be protecting him, comforting him, and all I could do was use his taut, slender body to muffle my sobs. No more than a quarter of an hour passed, but I became so lost in the throbbing haze of pain that I didn’t even notice when he shifted position and began to unseal the bonds from my wrists.
Silence… hold… to protect him… It is bearable because it is necessary. It is for your wife and your son that you never thought to see. How blessed is life… how glorious the Way that can devise a path beyond all expectations… to come through pain and despair to find such joy…
The desert breeze that chilled the rivulets of sweat coursing down my body began to whisper of endless sand, of tiny hollows of moisture deep hidden to escape the rapacious sun, of hardy, bony creatures that scuttered cleverly from one scrap of shade to another or burrowed deep in the cool embrace of the earth, of dry skeletal plants that yet held a core of life. And on the very edge of the wind was the kiss of snow, blown all the way from the pinnacles of the Mountains of Light, and the faintest breath of the awakening Vales of Eidolon. “Oh, gods, young Prince…”
“Got to hurry.” His head drooped as he carefully moved the crucible. The filled vessel radiated searing heat; the silver had melted away. “Can you take this? Dispose of it?” His tongue was thick with sleep.
“Lower it just a little so I can reach it.” Awkwardly I took the crucible and managed to empty the molten metal into the hole I had scraped out for relieving myself.
“Now I’ve got to replace the seal… so they won’t notice. Give me the vessel with the powder.”
“As an assistant, I have decided limitations,” I said, using my feet to retrieve the cup I had dropped while he removed the seal.
Gerick held it in his hand. Heat blazed from the little vessel, and the gray powder sagged into liquid. His power was awesome in its magnitude and villainous in its composition. Once I sensed it, even so faintly as in that first hour of my release, I wanted to tell him to stop, not to use such power even for good purpose. But he had already wrenched my head forward onto his chest once more, wiped a cold ointment on the raw strip of skin between the ends of the collar, and begun to drip the hot liquid on it, guiding it with his fingers.