As the daylight faded, lingering in the pearly glow given off by the paving stones of the city, I tried a hundred more questions, sideways, backward, arranging and rearranging them to elicit any scrap of information about one particular unlucky boy. To no avail. Dassine had made no references to any living child save the child I had been.
The luminous commard outside the window emptied and fell quiet. Bareil told me that even with the more peaceful times of the past few months, people were not accustomed to going about freely at night. The Seeking of the Zhid- the creeping invasion of the soul that led to despair-had always been strongest in the dark hours. Watchers yet manned the walls at night, but had neither seen any sign of the Zhid nor felt their Seeking since I had returned from the mundane world after doing… whatever I had done there.
“Stars of night, what does he expect of me?” I flopped onto the rumpled bedcovers, burying my face and my confusion. Dassine had said Bareil was the one who could help me. He must have thought it would be easy, or he would have slipped in some further word of instruction, even in his last distress. I rolled to my back. “Detan detu, madrissé. Tell me the ways Master Dassine gave you to help me. Anything more than the expected things like answering questions and leading me around the city.”
Bareil nodded. “Master Dassine has allowed me to know the reasons for your present condition, and the means he has used to cause it and to remedy it. He has permitted me to know what things it might do you harm to know before you remember them properly, and what things would be of more benefit than harm. He has given me the purposes and instructions for the use of the device which we collected-the pink stone-and the second device which you must allow me to hold safe until the time is right for me to explain its history. He has entrusted me with the knowledge of shifting the exit point of the Bridge and several other such matters which may be spoken only in your presence, else my tongue will become mute for the duration of my life. He has entrusted me with the complete story of his sojourn in the Wastes, which he has told to no other living person, and how you must use his knowledge to chart your course for the future. He has entrusted me with the knowledge of those men and women that he mistrusts and those whom he trusts. Shall I go on?”
“Stars of night, Bareil…”
“My madrisson honored me with such confidence as no one has ever given a Dulcé.”
“Do either of these devices-the pink stone or the other one-have anything to do with a child or any of the matters we have discussed?”
“Not that I can see, my lord. It seems I can be no help to you in the matter of the child.”
Staring at the smoke-stained plaster of the ceiling, I thought back to Dassine’s words yet again, reciting each one exactly as he had burned it into my head. Holy stars! I sat up. How could one man be so unendingly thickheaded? I had been misstating them all along. Only one can help, he had said. Bareil… your guide. But he hadn’t said that Bareil and the person who could help were one and the same. “Dulcé, who in Avonar did Dassine trust?”
“Trust? No one, my lord, save myself. He often said it.”
“None of the Preceptors?”
“Most especially none of the Preceptors. He has long suspected that one or more of his colleagues is a tool of the Lords.”
That would explain a great deal. “Outside Avonar, then. Did he trust anyone outside of Avonar that might have knowledge of this matter?”
“I know of only one person that he trusted unreservedly, my lord, or whom he told anything of his work with you.”
“Who was that?”
“Lady Seriana.” The Dulcé looked away and closed his mouth tight. Dangerous ground that, and Bareil knew it. She had undone me once.
“She is across the Bridge.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Is it possible that she might have knowledge of this mystery?”
“It is possible, though I have no direct information that says it to be true.”
“And you know of no one else who might?”
“The Preceptors might. It is my presumption that Master Exeget might.”
“You mean that Dassine may have learned of the abduction from Exeget before the attack?”
“I was told nothing of this matter, my lord. Though I’m sure there are matters which Master Dassine did not discuss with me, I believe he would have made sure I knew anything of vital importance to you… if he had the opportunity.”
“But why would Exeget give him such important information and then have him killed?”
“I agree that such actions make no sense at all. Perhaps Master Exeget was taunting Master Dassine. I don’t know.”
There was a great deal more I wanted to learn from Bareil, but more than anything, I wanted to act. I had thought and questioned, lived in memory and dreams and confusion for so long that I was about to burst from the desire to ride, to run, to fight, to stretch my muscles for anything more than easing the cramps of too-short sleeping.
So. Two choices. We could find Exeget and force answers from him, or we could seek out the Lady Seriana and discover if she knew anything of the mystery. My earlier conflict about the merits and justice of revenge induced me to choose the latter. Confronting the lady might damage my mind a bit, but I could not rid myself of the disturbing suspicion that confronting Exeget, with the image of the dying Dassine still so clear in my head, might do considerable damage to my soul.
“The Bridge, then,” I said. “I will speak to the lady first.”
Bareil bowed. “Command me, Lord.”
“Detan detu, madrissé. Tell me what I must do to cross the Bridge and find the Lady Seriana.”
“First, you will need the pink stone…” In a quiet monologue, Bareil told me the words to raise the light of the stone, telling the lady we were on the way, and then how to reverse the enchantment so that I could set the exit point of the Bridge to the place where she was to be found. When he had schooled me enough, he motioned me to the door. I took our pack from him and followed.
We left the guesthouse in a more conventional manner than we had entered it, down the stairs and through a large room-a salon, Bareil had called it-that was quite different from the common rooms of inns in the Four Realms. This was a soft-lit, quiet place with many small groups of men and women engaged in lively discussions or storytelling, or testing their skills at sonquey-a game of strategy played with square tiles of red and green, finger-length bars of silver, and a dollop of sorcery. At another table, two men and a woman bent their heads over a pattern of exquisitely painted lignial cards, representing Speakers, Singers, Tree Delvers, and others of the hundred Dar’Nethi talents. The woman was pregnant, likely calculating the prospects of her coming child’s magical gifts. A burly man served out mugs of saffria and ale, and laughter rolled through the room from here to there like summer showers. No fights. No filth. No grizzled veterans building the edifice of their valor larger with each tankard. No contests of manhood proving only that the stink of ale, sweat, piss, and vomit was the price of good humor. Steady-burning lamps hung about the room, and their light had nothing to do with fire. In fact, there was no smoke at all, save the marvelous emanations of a roasting pig, generously dripping its fat into the firepit in one corner of the room. If I could have borne the thought of sitting still another moment, I would have insisted on a plate of it.