“Would you like to walk?” I said. “There’s not much to see in this garden, but walking would be warmer as we wait.”
“I’d like that very much. I can’t seem to get enough of walking outdoors.”
Inside, I danced and leaped and crowed with delight; Karon had never gotten enough of walking out of doors. Outwardly, I smiled and gestured toward the path.
My boots crunched quietly as we strolled through the frosty morning. Karon broke our companionable silence first. “Tell me more of yourself.”
“What kind of things?”
“Anything. It’s refreshing to hear of someone who isn’t me.”
I laughed and began to speak of things I enjoyed, of books and conversation, of puzzles and music, of meadows and gardens. He chuckled when I told him of my first awkward attempts at growing something other than flowers. “Jonah couldn’t understand why his plants produced no beans, until the day he found me diligently picking off the blooms. I told him that my gardener had once said that plants would grow larger if we didn’t let them flower. Poor Jonah laughed until tears came, telling me that until we could eat the leaves I had best leave the flowers be. I had ruined the entire planting, a good part of their winter sustenance. It was devastating for one so proud of her intellect as I, but it was only the first of many gaps in my experience I was to discover.”
“This Jonah sounds like a kind gentleman. He was not your family, though, for if his crop was a good part of his winter sustenance, he was not the lord of this manor.”
Careful, Seri. Careful. “Jonah and Anne were like parents to me. I was estranged from my own family at the time.”
“But now you are reconciled?”
“They’re all dead now, my mother and my father and my only brother. The lord of this house is my ten-year-old nephew, and the lady is his mother, a somewhat… self-absorbed… young widow.”
“We have something in common, then. I’ve gained and lost two families in these past months, one I loved and one I hardly knew. And now I’m left with only Dassine.”
“And does Dassine teach you to grow beans, or does he pout, whine, and tell you nasty gossip?”
His laugh was deep and rich, an expression of his soul’s joy that had nothing to do with memory. “He has taught me a great deal, and done his share of pouting and cajoling, but no interesting gossip and certainly nothing of beans. Beans must be beyond my own experience also.” They were. I knew they were. I laughed with him.
The path led us toward a sagging arbor, a musty passage so hopelessly entangled with dead, matted vines that the sun could not penetrate it. Without thinking I followed my longtime habit and looked for an alternate way. But to avoid traversing the arbor we would need to trample through a muddy snarl of shrubbery or retrace our steps.
“Is there a problem with the path?” Karon asked, as I hesitated.
“No,” I said, feeling foolish. “I just need to let my eyes adjust so I won’t trip over whatever may be inside. I must get a gardener out here to clear all this away.” I led him quickly into the leafy shadows. The air was close and smelled of rotting leaves, and our feet crunched on the matted vines.
“Why are you afraid?” His voice penetrated the darkness like the beam of a lantern.
“I’m not… not really. A silly thing from childhood.”
“There’s nothing to fear.” His presence enfolded me.
Less than fifty paces and we rounded the curve and emerged into the sunlight. “No,” I said, my voice trembling ever so slightly. “Nothing to fear. This was my mother’s garden.” I walked briskly, stopping only when I reached the lambina tree again. From the corner of my eye I could see Dassine hobbling slowly toward us. Not yet! Not even an hour had passed.
Suddenly a quivering trace of enchantment pierced the morning, and the lambina burst into full bloom, each great yellow blossom unfolding like a miniature sunrise, its pungent fragrance wafting through the sharp air. In a few moments of wonder, the huge blossoms floated away like enormous, silken butterflies, only to be replaced by the soft white blooms of summer, heavy with sweet and languid scent, each cradled in its nest of bright green. And then the glorious dying, the white blossoms fading into burnished gold and the waxy green leaves into deep russet, falling at last to leave a royal carpet on the frozen ground.
“Thank you,” I said, my breath taken away by the marvel. “That was lovely.”
“It’s too cold to wake it completely, and I know I must be wary in this world, but I thought perhaps it might ease your sadness.”
“And so it has.” I hadn’t meant for him to see my tears. Perhaps he would think they were for my mother. “You’ll come again to visit me?” Dassine was almost with us.
“If my keeper allows it. I’d like it very-” Both voice and smile died away as he stared at my face. Knitting his brow, he touched my tears with his finger, and his expression changed as if I had grown wings or was a dead woman that walked before him. “Seri… you’re…” Pain glanced across his face, and the color drained out of him. Rigid, trembling, he whispered, “I know you.” He raised his hands to the sides of his head. “A beacon in darkness… Oh gods, so dark…” Eyes closed, head bent, he groaned and stepped backward. I reached out.
“Do not!” commanded Dassine angrily, shoving me aside and grabbing Karon’s arm to steady him. “What have you done? What did you say?”
“Nothing. Nothing that was forbidden. We walked and talked of the garden. Nothing of the past. He made the tree bloom for me.”
Dassine laid his hands on Karon’s temples, murmuring words I couldn’t hear. Instantly, Karon’s face went slack. When his eyes flicked open again, they were fixed on the ground, and the light had gone out of them.
“What is it? What’s happened?” I whispered.
“As I said. It was not a good time to bring him. You are too strong an influence.” The old man took Karon’s arm. “Come, my son. Our time here is done. We’ve a hard journey home.” They started down the path toward the eastern wall.
“Dassine!” I called after them. “Will he be all right?”
“Yes, yes. He’ll be fine. It was my fault. It was too early, and I left him too long. A setback only.”
Before I could bid him farewell or ask when they might come again, the two white figures disappeared into a flickering fog.
CHAPTER 5
Karon
Surely I am the sorriest of madmen. These hands… they are not the hands that lifted the wine goblet to my father on the day he became the Lord of Avonar, my Avonar of the mundane world, the Avonar that is no more. The shape is wrong. They’re too large; the palms too wide. The hair on the backs of them too fair. This face… I peer into this placid pond that mimes so truly the tree and the stone beside me and. the clouds that travel these azure skies, and the face I see is not the face that looks back at me from the ponds that exist in my memory. And my left arm… only four scars. Into what reality did the hundreds of them vanish, each one a painful ecstasy so clearly remembered, each one a reminder of the gift I know is still a part of me? It is a loss beside which the loss of the limb itself would be no matter at all. Where has the first of them gone, the long, ragged one made when I embraced my dying brother and a future that terrified me-the day I first knew I was a Healer? With this gift I have brought people back from the dead.
So. These are a stranger’s hands. Yet, I know their history, too. Know and feel and remember… They have been anointed with oil of silestia, that which consecrates the Heir of our ancient king, D’Arnath, to the service of his people. With them I raised the Preceptors of Gondai from their genuflections on the day I was made Prince of Avonar, this other Avonar that still lives. These hands wield a sword with the precision of a gem cutter and the speed of lightning. And they have taken life, a deed that fills my soul with revulsion.
How is it possible that I’ve killed and thought it right? And I’m good at it and proud of my prowess…