“Blazing demons!” He pulled my face back around. “What did they do to you?”
I shoved him backward. “It’ll go away.” But it wouldn’t. Not ever.
“Does it hurt?”
“No. I just can’t see very well right now.”
“Damn! So did you get the story out of me?”
“Yes.”
“And you believe me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, what are we going to do?”
“I’ll have to get her. I think I can do it. Then I’ll try to get you both out of Zhev’Na.”
“And you, too.”
“That won’t be possible.”
“She won’t go without you.”
“There’s no other way. They’ll kill her unless I do what they want. They may kill her anyway, but I’ll try.”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Obviously not as well as I would like.” Otherwise my mother would not be Ziddari’s prisoner. Wrong about everything. Stupid. Worthless. Wicked.
“I mean, if I were to tell you something right now that might help… it wouldn’t go straight to the Lords, now would it?”
“They don’t know about you.” At least I’d managed that much.
“What if there was someone else in Zhev’Na who could help you?”
“I don’t think there’s anyone who could possibly-”
“I know you don’t think nobody can do anything but you, but this person… he’d like to help. And he’s good. The best.”
“We can’t get Seri away from Zhev’Na unless the Lords allow it. It doesn’t matter how good your friend is at anything.”
“I think you should talk to him.”
“Bring him here if you want.”
“He can’t. He’s really stuck.”
“This is stupid.”
“You won’t think so. But you got to keep it secret.”
“All right.”
“Do you swear?”
“Yes. I swear. Take me to him. But you’ll have to lead me.”
“Blazes.”
CHAPTER 41
Karon
I was at wit’s end. I had dabbled in madness for so long that I knew no other way to live. A day with any semblance of normality would probably have me screaming in terror. I fought and trained and stayed alive. I watched for the least opportunity, the least chink in the armor of Zhev’Na, and came up with nothing.
Paulo had been despondent after my match with Vruskot, for he’d been sure that Gerick would take me on as swordmaster. He told me of his several encounters with my son, and his belief that Gerick was desperately torn between the demands of his masters and his own nature. “He’s decided to be like them, but he don’t like it at all. He just don’t see any other way to be.”
“They want him very badly. Only the one person-the anointed Heir of D’Arnath-has power over the Breach and the Bridge and the Gates.”
“But if you’re still alive… Maybe the anointing just won’t work.”
“As long as I’m trapped in this collar, I’m as good as dead. And unless I’m free to use them, the Heir’s powers will pass straight on to Gerick when he’s anointed.”
Dismal thoughts, all of this. It didn’t help my morale that Paulo was almost caught on that visit. A guard chose just the wrong time to make a circuit of the slave pen with a blazing torch, and Paulo had to roll out of the light. I set up a racket on the bars, feigning a bout of madness-a perilously easy bit of playacting. On his next visit, I would command Paulo to stay away from me. A bleak prospect. His cheerful grin was the best thing in my life.
My unease was not at all soothed by what Paulo had reported of Gerick’s “changes.”
“They say he’s come a demon, afraid of the light, and that he goes days at a time without eating or sleeping, and that he’s roaming about the place inside people’s heads. He told me- He told me he was going to be one of the Lords. Is that what’s happening?”
Of course it was. Corruption was not enough. All the power Gerick would inherit when he came of age would be theirs, but only if there was nothing of him left that might resist them. I had long since lost count of the passing time, but weeks had gone by since I had been celebrated for living out an entire year in the slave pen. Gerick’s anointing could not be far distant. The Three would be the Four. Chaos. Disaster.
The days continued.
Straw tickled my nose. Waking instantly, I rolled toward the bars.
“I’ve got bad news. They’ve got her-”
“Ah, no…” It was all I could do not to scream, to tear at the bars, to bang on them until a guard would come for me and I could strangle him with my bare hands. I had dared not even think of Seri lest somehow the knowledge of her presence be detected in me. It had been the only protection I could give her.
“-but I’ve brought someone as might be able to help.”
“What possible help-?”
“V’Saro”-he was quite emphatic about the name, sharpening my attention-“this person wallowing in the muck here beside me is the new Prince of Avonar, the young Lord Gerick.” He turned to the dark shape behind him. “This here is V’Saro. You saw him fight the other day. I think you ought to set him free so he can help us.”
Disbelieving, I pressed close to the bars and strained to see into the darkness. The boy held his face away, but his profile was clear. It didn’t seem possible. “Paulo, are you all right?” I whispered. “He hasn’t-”
“He knows about Seri and says he can get her out of Zhev’Na. But he says he won’t come. I told him that he don’t have to do everything by himself, and that he has to get away from here, too. Tell him, V’Saro. Maybe he’ll hear it from you.”
“Seri would most certainly agree. She’d say you should be taken out first.”
“She would be wrong.” Gerick’s voice was glacial.
“So can you do it?” Paulo whispered to Gerick.
“Do what?”
“Set V’Saro free. Undo the magic. The collar. Let him loose so he can help us get her.”
“I don’t know. I suppose I could get him out of the pen… to come and teach me. But the collar… I don’t know. If you want your talents…” He didn’t seem interested. But he hadn’t closed the door, either. As long as he’d agree to do it, the less interested the better. I wasn’t sure I was ready for him to know who I was.
“Swordplay won’t win this battle,” I said. “We need sorcery of a particular kind that I am able to provide. Though I’ve begun to think Paulo is the only true sorcerer here.”
Gerick snorted at that. “He talks to horses. And gets people to say things they never meant to say.”
“So can you do it?” said Paulo.
“I’ll have to think about it.”
“You won’t be long in your thinkin‘?” said Paulo.
“I can’t. There’s only four days. Then I won’t be able to help you any more.”
“All right, then.” Paulo touched his hand to the bars of my cage, and the boys slipped away.
Four days… earth and sky… If Gerick could unseal the collar, and if I had not forgotten what I was about-a nagging uncertainty that haunted my nights-I could take us out of Ce Uroth. The Lords could ensure that any portal to Avonar was under their control, but I knew another way out that they could not touch. It was just that my gut heaved at the thought…
The proper course would be to abandon Seri. The safety of the Bridge and two worlds was my first responsibility, and that meant that Gerick was far more important than my wife. Yet, as I lay in the straw, staring into the dark sky as it yielded to a dead gray, the more certain I became that we could not leave her behind. Some care for Seri had brought Gerick to this point. Who was to say that the act of saving her life might not be his salvation?