“But he does not breathe.”
“No. His heart is still.”
You must not give up hope…
Red-clad guards from Ustele’s house carried Men’Thor and Radele away on velvet-draped litters, and Ce’Aret and Mem’Tara finished their examination of the room. “We should go now, my lord,” they said to Ven’Dar. “The people are afraid and hear only one rumor more dreadful than the next. When word goes out with Men’Thor’s and Radele’s bodies, it will be worse. They need reassurance from their Prince.”
Ven’Dar shook his head. “As most senior Preceptor, Ce’Aret, it is your place to inform the people of Gondai that Prince D’Natheil is dead. Do so, and tell them I stand vigil with him as our Way prescribes. I would ask them to do the same - to hold the Prince and his beloved son in their thoughts as a lighthouse shines its brilliance into the tempest, so that wherever they journey, they may find the Way.”
The two women bowed and left us there, Ven’Dar and me, sitting together with Karon and Gerick. After a while Paulo’s torch guttered out, leaving us in the dark, but Ven’Dar made no move to create another light. Instead he held my hand in quiet companionship, and I felt his gentle thoughts of Karon entwine with my own. As it had been sixteen years before on a bitter day in Leire, I was left to mourn, only this time, I was not alone.
And so it was in the darkness of the silent guardroom, as I drowsed against Ven’Dar’s shoulder, trying to maintain my one-sided conversation with Karon and Gerick, that I felt the first tug on the other end of the lifeline…
CHAPTER 33
Gerick
It was a long wicked time from the moment I possessed my father’s body until I realized we were dead. The last true physical sensation was the touch of my father’s hand. He gripped it firmly… I gripped it firmly, for I was both of us. And more. I was not only Gerick, not only Karon, not only some intrusive scrap of D’Natheil, but I was also the Three, the vile, immortal, all-powerful Lords of Zhev’Na, who believed their day of victory was come after a thousand years of devouring desire. I could scarcely hold a single thought together, and if I’d waked in the madhouse in Montevial, it wouldn’t have surprised me at all.
I suspected my father had done something extraordinary when I looked down to see our bodies draped across the palace guardroom… or perhaps I was traveling with the Lords again, on my way to call down lightning over the Wastes. But I’d never felt sorrow when I traveled with the Lords, not like that which overwhelmed me when I saw my mother kneel weeping at our sides just before the darkness fell. And the Lords and I had never reached out to comfort one who wept at our passing as my father reached out for my mother with his body’s last breath.
With the darkness came the fire… fire that drove me to the edge of reason… that set my blood boiling in my veins. Choking, acrid smoke scorched my lungs, all the more horror because it smelled of my own seared flesh. My vision failed as my eyes charred in their sockets.
The fire set the Three howling. They had felt no pain since they were transformed, but had only consumed it, lusted after it, for it fed their power. But this fire was their pain, as it was mine, as it was my father’s. Neither true flesh, nor blood, nor eyes were necessary, for all of the horror was in the memory of my father, at last made real for the ones who had caused it, and for me, because I had to be there to bring the Lords.
Hold, my son. I will not pass it over… Whatever conies, the Three must have a taste of what they’ve wrought in the world.
Ten years my father had lived with his death fire fixed in his conscious mind. I’d never really understood.
It had been the most difficult thing I’d ever done to take my father’s hand, more difficult than leaving Zhev’Na, more difficult than enduring the firestorms in the Bounded or D’Arnath’s fire in my prison cell, more difficult even than allowing Notole, Parven, and Ziddari to enter my body and mind again. Once they were inside me, choking off every sensation of life, devouring every shred of humanity I’d regained, my craving for power was magnified a thousand fold. To touch my father’s hand would be to give it up all over again. And who knew what else I might be letting myself in for. His sword was out of the way, but his enchantments had come near killing me fifty times already. Though I’d spent a great deal of effort trying to convince myself that my father’s silence had been intended to prevent the Lords’ learning of his plans from me, it was almost impossible to relinquish the Lords’ cold comfort for something I couldn’t imagine. I had to trust him, and I wasn’t even sure who he was.
He had made his decision on the night at the Lion’s Grotto, when he linked our minds together with his healing magic. His voice had been gentle at first, just as I remembered him, my true father. He told me of Ven’Dar’s belief that I was a Soul Weaver, so that what I’d done to Paulo and Ven’Dar had been no more a sign of my corruption than Ven’Dar’s word windings or his own healings. Though I was glad to hear him say such things, instead of how vile I was or how much he wanted me dead, I didn’t believe their theories. I knew what I was.
As he explored what I knew and believed of the Bounded, and the story of my dreams and all my confusions, he was appalled at what he considered his failure with me. Unforgivable that I couldn’t see, he said. That I let it come to this pass. I should have been at Verdillon more often, and perhaps I could have come to understand what happened - and what was happening - to you.
Whenever he grew angry, I had to distract him, for his touch became less sure, and his presence less substantial, and I very much wanted his help. But he came very quickly to the conclusion that there was no way to detach me from the Bounded. His first slight attempt at separation seemed to leave a gaping hole in my memory where someone named Ob was concerned, and my father said there would be nothing left of me if he proceeded, with no accompanying assurance that the Lords couldn’t use me anyway.
Then Paulo must go back to the Bounded, and lead the Singlars through the portal to Valleor, I said. I prepared them before I left. They just await my word.
It would give King Evard a greater mystery than he’s ever known, but unfortunately, I doubt these Singlars will fare better in the Four Realms than to chance their fate with you. That was my father speaking, so I knew he was still with me.
Roxanne will see to them, I said.
You care for these people a great deal.
I just… I would not have them die because of me. They’re not evil.
Neither are you, Gerick. You never were. If this new world is a reflection of you, then you must see that it is not just the oculus that defines what you are, but the goodness and strength and resilience of the Bounded, as well. This ocean of light… what a wonder… that, too, is a part of you.
It was then he told me he needed to learn more of how the Lords controlled me. Perhaps something other than my death could disrupt their attachment. He asked me to open the door in my mind.
I didn’t want him to see. If he could be D’Natheil while he looked, instead of my father, perhaps I wouldn’t care. There’s nothing you can do, I said. Just give Paulo a day, then do what you have to do. It’ll be too dangerous if you start poking around in my head. They’ll know.
But he told me how important it was to him and to my mother that we look for every possible solution. And if we were to find another answer, he needed to know everything - what I was and what I had been. What I had always been.
If I allow it… you won’t tell her? I don’t want her to know.
I promise. She knows your true heart, Gerick. She’s always known, and nothing will ever change her mind. No one in any world can match your mother for stubbornness. But there’s no need for her to know everything that’s been done to you. Whatever is between us here, will stay between us.