Gar’Dena shoved the Preceptors through the portal one by one. “My lady!” he called, gesturing for me to come. But I could not go. Not yet.
Karon gazed down at Gerick. “You must come with us.”
“Why? So you can execute me?”
“To set you free. You don’t belong here.”
“You’re wrong.” And Gerick let his false image dissolve and with it the walls and the hearth and the trappings of ordinary life. He stood in the stark, black hall of the Lords, his truth revealed, his diamond eyes glittering in the darkness. “There is no going back, even if I wanted. This is exactly where I belong.”
Karon did not flinch or falter. “It doesn’t matter. Not even this. Nothing… nothing… is irrevocable. I, of all men, can bear witness to that. Come with us who care for you.”
“I’ve freed the woman,” said Gerick, folding his arms across his breast. “Take her away quickly or I’ll end up killing you both.” Then he turned his back on us and walked slowly toward the dais where the black thrones sat vacant.
From the opposite end of the hall where a tall, wide doorway broke the line of the colonnade, running footsteps entered the vast chamber. “My lord,” cried a familiar voice, echoing in the empty vastness. “Three Zhid warriors right behind me!” A youth wearing Drudge’s garb burst through the gaping door, his arms laden with belts and scabbards bristling with swords and knives. He sped across the black, mirrored floor into the light, shooting me a cheerful grin. “We’ve come to rescue you.”
Paulo dumped his bundle of armaments on the floor beside Karon. “I come by these from the guards’ stores. Thought you might have need.”
Karon wrenched his gaze from Gerick’s back and smiled at Paulo. “You are irreplaceable, my friend.” Dragging a sword and a knife from the tangle, he took up a position between the door Paulo had just entered and the portal where Gar’Dena was disappearing into the council chamber.
“Does the young master have a sword on him-or might he want this one?” Paulo called after Karon, pulling a blade from the pile and gesturing at Gerick’s back.
“I don’t think he needs one. You and Seri, get through the portal. I’ll wait for Gerick.” His gaze embraced me, and he waved his sword toward the enchanted doorway. “Go. I’ll bring him. I promise.”
But before I could convince myself to leave, a nauseating wave of dark power pulsed through the vast chamber. With a thunderous boom, the portal vanished. Exeget cried out and slumped to the floor. The little gold case of silestia fell out of his hand, clattering across the dark surface. At the same time, three Zhid warriors burst from the far end of the room, swords drawn and Karon stepped forward to meet them.
While Paulo, hands on his waist, looked uncertainly from Karon to Gerick and back again, I ran to the fallen sorcerer. “Can I help you, Preceptor?” I asked, searching for some wound or hurt to ease. Sitting with his head drooped between his knees, he was bleeding from his mouth and nose, and wheezing like unoiled bellows.
“Too late.” After carefully wiping his fingers on his robe, he held up his right hand. One of his fingers was black. “Unfortunate timing… for me, but fortunate for the Prince and the boy. At least the Lords will have nothing left of me to examine should they triumph in the end.”
“You were the one who told me to be silent and not to be afraid.”
Even in his mortal distress, the sorcerer managed a sly half-smile. “Dassine said you were the key to everything. May you find strength to finish it. We owe you”-he coughed and fought for breath, flailing his hand until he caught my own in an iron grip-“trust you… if all fails… you must finish… for the worlds…”
“Master, what do you want me to do?” I said. From behind me came shouts and the clash of steel.
Exeget’s head dropped again as he fought for every painful breath. He looked to be beyond hearing. When his cold hand slipped from mine, a small gold canister lay in my palm, identical to the canister that had fallen out of his hand when the portal collapsed-the one that still lay beside my foot.
Exeget began choking. I slipped the gold case he’d given me into my pocket and rolled him to his side. A stream of bloody spittle dribbled from his mouth… his lips black… and his fingernails… the one finger wholly black… The silestia had been poisoned, designed to slay Gerick before he could become the Destroyer. The case on the floor was the one he had used. Therefore the case in my pocket must contain the uncontaminated oil of silestia.
A shadow fell over me, and I looked up to see Madyalar staring down at the Exeget. The Preceptor vomited up blood and lay still.
“He needs help,” I said.
“I would as soon nurse a snake. The fool looks dead already. All I want from him is the silestia-” She wandered away, scuffing her foot on the floor, seeking the gold case.
“Plotting until the end,” I whispered to the pale, still face. “If you can hear me, know that I understand your sacrifice. Gods have mercy… I will see it done.” Quickly, carefully, making sure that Madyalar could not see, I switched the two, placing the case with the poisoned ointment in Exeget’s pocket and the case with the real oil on the floor as if it had rolled out of his hand. Then I backed away from him, not checking to see if he yet lived, not daring to think of what I had just done. Gerick could not be anointed. If we could not save him… if Karon died and Gerick chose to be a Lord and the anointed Heir…
Only moments later, Madyalar crowed in triumph as she found the two cases. The one that she found on the floor, she named as the poison that had killed Exeget and threw it, spinning and clattering, across the floor. The one that she found hidden in Exeget’s pocket-the poison-she dropped into her own. I had given little consideration to gods since the day Karon burned, but on this day I needed every aid the universe could provide. Good Vasrin, holy Annadis, mighty Jerrat, if you can hear the cries of an unbeliever, let Karon prevail…
One of the Zhid lay dead on the floor, but Karon’s battle with the other two was growing desperate. As one engaged him, the other circled and attacked from a different direction. Relentlessly. Their swords rang and blazed with sparks when they struck the floor or one of the black pillars as Karon dodged in and out of them seeking a bit of shelter. And, of course, the battle was being fought with more than swords. Karon’s every stroke split the advancing darkness, every parry pushed back the night as if it was yet a third enemy that pursued him. The air was so filled with enchantments that it crackled. My hair floated outward from my head, and my skin was flushed and tingling. Then, in an explosion of green fire, Karon’s blade snapped.
“We’ve got to help him, Paulo.” I had felt him come up behind me.
“There is no help for him.”
I jumped up and whirled about. Gerick, not Paulo, stood behind me, fists clenched at his side, watching the battle with his diamond eyes. Paulo had dragged another sword from the pile of weapons and was running toward Karon. “My lord!” he shouted, as Karon staggered backward, fending off two long blades with only a dagger and the broken sword hilt. “Here, my lord!”