“The bath is fine, but no food. You must come to us fasting this night.”
I didn’t ask why. I probably didn’t want to know. A slave came onto the balcony and knelt, spreading his arms wide. He had a linen towel over one arm. “What will happen to my slaves, my household after tonight?” I said, poking the slave with my foot and jerking my head toward the door so he would go back inside to wait for me.
“You need not concern yourself with these servants.”
“I want them put to sleep. Tonight, before I go.”
“For what reason?” My skin felt hot from his examination.
“I don’t want them to watch me go and think about it. Perhaps, once I am a Lord, I’ll decide to kill them all. Or maybe I won’t.” The last red crescent of the sun disappeared below the horizon.
Darzid smiled and swept his hand toward the doorway. “Your will shall be done, of course.”
I hated him.
CHAPTER 43
Seri
I had never been anywhere as cold as the keep of Zhev’Na, not even the mountain passes of the Cerran Brae in the deeps of winter. The dark walls chilled my flesh and spirit until my blood seemed to slow and my thoughts close in upon themselves like a daylily deprived of the sun.
I could not read thoughts like the Dar’Nethi or live inside another’s mind like the Lords, but when I embraced my son for that one brief moment, I knew I’d been right about him. In the past months I had tried to find ways to tell him he wasn’t evil. Paltry things they’d been, pitiful, but all I could find or make in late nights or early mornings when the other women were asleep. I wasn’t sure he had understood my message. But he had tried to save me, and he had been gentle and apologetic when my capture became inevitable. So I clung to the hope that he would yet refuse the destiny they planned for him. I doubted I’d have an opportunity to do more. I knew how many months had passed. He would turn twelve any day now.
My interrogation by the Lords was amazingly benign. An old woman had laid her dry, scarred hands on my head and taken possession of all I knew. It was over in moments. I felt as empty as if I had vomited up everything I had ever eaten, but at least I betrayed no one who could be hurt by it. Gar’Dena’s care to keep the pieces of the puzzle separate had been the most successful-I suppose the only successful-part of his plan. The old woman already knew Gar’Dena was the enemy of the Lords, and she told me, somewhat wistfully, that Gernald the slavemaster had been dead for a year and could not be called to account for his part. So our failure was explained at last. The Zhid slave-master was surely the one who was to have given me the signal and taken me and Gerick out of Zhev’Na.
Once the woman was satisfied, I was left alone in a well-appointed suite of rooms. Clean clothes were laid out on the bed. The bony, dark-eyed slave girl I’d seen in the Gray House brought my meals, scurrying away in terror when I tried to speak to her. A bathing room held soap and towels, and hot water was available at a touch. It was the best I had lived in over a year. But I knew prisons, even fine ones. Though I used the bath and the clothes, and ate the food, afterward I sat and awaited the end of the world… or at least my small part of it.
After two days of listless idleness, I discovered paper and pens and ink in a small desk. Though I had no illusions that he would ever see it, I wrote a letter to Gerick, telling him the story of Karon and me, of Tomas and Kellea and Paulo, of D’Natheil and Dassine and all those who were a part of his life. You have been beloved since the day we first knew you…
Late on the evening of the fourth day of my captivity, Darzid came to me. The harbinger of evil. The companion of demons. He wore his usual sleek black and sprawled languidly on a red couch, facing me across a narrow span of gray marble.
“Are you comfortable in the Lords’ house, my lady?”
“As comfortable as one can be in a tomb.”
“Surely you find this better than sleeping with rats and eating cold gruel. I must admire your fortitude in the face of Gar’Dena’s failure at plotting.”
“You may tell my son that you were kind and beneficent before your masters dispensed with me.”
He burst out laughing. “It is so delightful to deal with you, Lady Seriana, and most especially to confound you. The Lords will not touch you. Your son will determine your fate entirely.” He leaned across the table, his dark eyes as sharp and brilliant as obsidian. “Is he not an exceptionally fine young Lord? He is everything the Lords of Zhev’Na could have wished for: intelligent, determined, honorable, spirited-just like his mother. And he carries his father’s considerable talents nobly. Unfortunate that the madman cannot see how his progeny has been nurtured to his fullest potential. Young Gerick will be the most powerful sorcerer the universe has ever produced.”
“You’ve let him believe he is evil.”
“But he is! Deliriously so. And no charming stones or mysterious star maps will change it. Did you not see his soul laid bare before you when you so foolishly revealed yourself? He feeds on the darkest passions of two worlds and begs for more. His blood is in a fever for it, and tonight you will watch as he is given a surfeit of what he craves.”
“And he will do the same for his masters-give them what they crave.”
“Oh, yes. On this night D’Arnath’s Bridge will fall. The universe will be reborn.”
“What is your part, Darzid-other than murderer, executioner, deceiver, and corrupter of children? How did you come to be the vulture that feasts on the corpses of so many noble spirits?”
“Ah, my lady, do you remember long ago when I tried to tell you of certain fantastical visions and my difficulty remembering my past?”
“Of course I remember. You-”
“I asked for your help, but you couldn’t be bothered and sent me away. Now I’ve remembered. Come with me, and you’ll see why you could never win.”
He jumped to his feet and held out his arm, but I wouldn’t touch him. He only laughed the more, snapped his fingers, and we were in a different place altogether.
We stood in the center of a shining black floor, a vast empty space encircled by ranks of towering pillars of black marble, each hung with a glass-paned lamp. Above us hung a star-filled night sky… or the seeming of it. Our footsteps caused a hollow echo as we walked toward a row of four black marble thrones that stood on a wide curved dais. Two of the chairs were occupied, one by the gray-haired woman who had questioned me, and the other by a tall man with long hair, a beaked nose, and a wide forehead. The two wore dark robes and strange masks of gold that covered the upper halves of their faces, with gems set in place of eyes. Death itself would have been a warm and cheerful contrast to their presence.
“Welcome, madam,” said the tall man… if man he was.
“Once a man,” he replied. His voice touched my mind like a clammy finger running down my spine. Depraved. Dead. “Now much more than a man. Parven is my name. To my right is my sister Notole whom you have already met. And of course you know my brother Ziddari from of old.”
“Ziddari…” The one who stood beside me chuckled as his face dissolved. And then his own gold mask was visible, the metal not just a covering for the upper half of his face, but grown together with his flesh, its blood-red rubies flashing in the lurid lamplight.