Seri and I looked at each other. It was a perfect solution. Our good friend Tennice would welcome Gerick and Seri to the country home he had inherited from my old professor Ferrante, and the private location of the house would enable me to come and go freely without raising dangerous questions.
Later, when I asked Paulo privately if he would consider staying with Gerick, he refused to dignify my question with anything but a disbelieving glare. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. If anything gave me hope for Gerick, it was his friendship with Paulo. Paulo’s goodness of heart and abiding honesty had touched a place in our son that neither Seri nor I was yet privileged to visit, and we rejoiced in it.
But of course, the rightness of Kellea’s suggestion meant we had no more excuse to delay. Avonar’s need was urgent. We could put our separation off no longer.
Paulo had rounded up the horses we’d left in the valley over a year before, and on a clean-washed spring morning three weeks after our escape from Zhev’Na, Bareil and I watched the four of them ride off southward. I had intended to accompany them along the way, but, in one of the rare times he initiated any conversation, Gerick had reassured me. “They don’t know where I am,” he said, fingering the reins so he wouldn’t have to look at me. “It won’t occur to them that I’m not… what I was… any longer. If I stay hidden, we should be safe enough.”
I had to take him at his word. For him to speak of the Lords at all was clearly difficult. And so, I had thanked him for his confidence and let them go. The jeweled earring and the gold mask with the diamonds lay at the bottom of my pack. I debated whether to destroy the vile things, but the part of me that bore responsibility for the war against the Lords surmised that such artifacts of power might have some use. Gerick had never asked what had become of them.
And so they were gone, and the Dulcé and I were left in the lovely, but so very empty, glade. “We’d best be off,” I said. Up the hill, into the cave, through the Gate, and across the Bridge to this other life that awaited me. I hated the thought of it.
My madrissé smiled sadly and placed a small, wrapped bundle in my hand. “Not quite yet, my lord. You are between times. Before you take up this life, you must be sure of your path.”
“What do you-? Ah.” From the cloth wrapping, I pulled the plain circle of dull wood set with the black crystal pyramid embedded in an iron ring, the object I’d taken from Dassine’s study so long ago. Now I knew what it was-the artifact to which my soul had been bound for the ten years I had existed without a body, ten years of darkness and pain, ten years of intricate enchantments and voracious learning, infused with the boundless energy and devotion of my Healer and jailer, Dassine. Touching the crystal would release me from this body’s bondage and allow me to cross the Verges if I chose to do so. My death, so long delayed, awaited me in its enchantments.
I stared at the thing and was overwhelmed by longing, a desperate ache in the depths of my being that was far colder and far more powerful than my yearning for Seri or my worries about Gerick. “Ah, Bareil, how can I risk using it now? So many are depending-”
“He said when you were whole again, and the boy was safe. He robbed you of your choice when you died, and again when he deceived you about D’Natheil’s death. And he swore by all he valued to return the choice to you. It was Master Dassine’s belief that if you did not choose this new life freely, then doubts would grow and, eventually, consume you. You would never be able to enter into your life fully, and if you could not do so, then you would fail in all you would attempt. You must be one place or the other-live or die-by your own choice.”
“A patronizing pronouncement from the old devil…” And not at all fair to give me such a choice when Seri and Gerick were out of reach. What if I could not resist the call of the Verges? I was supposed to be dead.
“I’ll watch over you, my lord, and do whatever is needed… after.” Bareil smiled, but tears welled up in his almond-shaped eyes. He didn’t expect me to return.
So it was with trepidation that I stroked the smooth face of the dark crystal and left D’Natheil’s body that had become my own. For a moment I saw that body lying on the green velvet hillside with the kindly Dulcé standing guard, the snowy peak of mighty Karylis looming over his shoulder. Far down the track that led to my ruined home and southward toward Yurevan, I saw the ones I loved most in the world riding into the dew-kissed peace of the morning. And then was I plunged into darkness, the ethereal pulse of the Verges beckoning me to the place of my belonging.
The long echo of my agony in the fire began to reverberate in my mind once more, but because I expected it this time, I could push it aside and concentrate on the distant light that called me into peace. I was very tired.
Where did I belong? I had lived my allotted span of years, and the Way had led me to the fire. I had accepted my fate as I had been taught-as I believed was necessary. But in doing so, I had abandoned Seri and my son and my friends to despair and death. To drown in such guilt would be easy. To run from it was tempting; beyond the Verges, perhaps, I could forget. But if I had followed any other course, made other choices, been someone other than myself, the Gate-fire might never have burned white, and the boy D’Natheil might not have been sent onto the Bridge and been destroyed by it.
I knew D’Natheil now, not everything, but enough, and D’Natheil could never have defeated the Lords of Zhev’Na. I had met the Lords in physical combat, in the slave pens of Zhev’Na, and in the battleground of my son’s mind, and Dassine had been right. Exeget had been right. The Lords were the enemies of all life, a darkness more profound than the emptiness between worlds or the universe before its creation. They were a disease that gnawed on the healthy body of humankind, and what was needed to eradicate them was a Healer. Somewhere in me was the way to defeat them.
An aurora of blue and rose and violet burst into a shimmering fountain that rained fragments of light upon me like rose petals showered on a bridegroom. Such glory… such music from beyond the range of my vision as the luminous fragments floated through my transparent self. I reached for one of them and heard faint, echoing laughter, and the whole mass of them embraced me in a whirling nebula of joy that would transport me beyond the Verges to where unknown wonders lay waiting. My soul was filled with their beauty and with such overarching desire that I cried out. But with a soft breath I blew on them, and they drifted away regretfully like dry snowflakes, leaving me in the cold and the darkness. “Not yet,” I said, and I turned my back on the Verges and set my feet upon the path that awaited me.
My eyes opened to the green and silent world. “Come, Bareil,” I said. “Let’s go home.”
Seri
I stand upon the graceful balcony of Verdillon watching Gerick and Paulo wrestling on the grassy lawn. They’ve been going at it for an hour. As they separate and sprawl on the green, panting and sweating and laughing, I smile and finger the rose-colored stone that hangs about my neck, wishing, as always, that it could send my thoughts to Avonar.
“Would that you could see these moments, my love,” I would say. “They are rare, but so precious, and they give me such hope. The black moods plague him as much as ever, and nights are still the worst. His cries are terrible when he dreams. One of us is always close by to comfort him, though he’ll not allow it once he’s awake again. But he’s begun to study history with Tennice and show interest in Kellea’s herb lore, and he appreciates that neither one coddles him. With Paulo he jests and teases and allows himself to be a boy again.
“Yesterday he asked me about this house, and why your name appears in the old journal that lies open in Ferrante’s study. I told him, then, about his father who was a student here, and how he immersed himself in beauty, art, and history long before he became a warrior or a prince. Perhaps it will encourage him to be less shy of you.
“Peace has settled into all of us for the moment. Sometimes, though, when I hear news of the human war that rages in Iskeran, or I think of the horrors you face beyond the walls of Avonar, or I see a trace of darkness in Gerick’s eyes, I believe we are like the Guardians of Comigor-you, Kellea, Paulo, and I-standing at the four corners of the keep and waiting for the enemy to ride over the horizon. We three will stay awake, my love. No harm will come to him while we watch. Keep yourself safe, and come to us soon.”