“You really did such a thing?” I said to Paulo.
He nodded. “After the Prince sent you away the other night, knowing he had to kill the young master.” Tears filled Paulo’s eyes. “They both knew it. So they sent me back. Wasn’t nothing I could do here.”
I gathered Paulo into my arms, and we both wept for a while.
Roxanne decided when it had been enough. “Don’t you think we should tell someone what’s happened? They need to know about the Prince and all. And if I’m to get back home to see to the Singlars… ”
“I’ll go,” said Paulo, dabbing his face with his sleeve. “Nothing better to be at.”
Paulo returned to the dungeon inside the hour. He had found a troop of terrified warriors at the far end of the passage and asked to be taken to the Preceptors. “They stayed back from me, like maybe they wasn’t sure whether I might be one of the Lords myself,” he reported.
But whatever the warriors had thought, they had taken Paulo to the council chamber where Mem’Tara and Ce’Aret were standing watch on Ven’Dar. “I told them what happened as best I could, and they said to come right back and tell you not to touch nor move anything, and not to let nobody come here. Wait for them, they said.”
The wait was not long. Ce’Aret arrived first. The old woman knelt alongside Karon and laid her hand on his forehead, closing her eyes. I could tell by her slow rocking when she began to grieve. After a while, she stood up and nodded her head to me. “The Prince’s lady… here. Alive. Your presence tells me that the mysteries I feel and see are a more complex weaving of joy and sorrow than imagining can tell.” Her withered hand gently stroked Karon’s hair. “It will take a very long time indeed to take in this sorrow.”
“Yes.” The world, the conversation, the stone, and the torchlight might have been illusion. I could not feel any of them.
“And the prisoner… the Fourth… lies dead as well… ”
I nodded, and she shook her head sadly. “A Soul Weaver, the Prince told me. Corrupted before we could know him.” She paused for a while, as if to ponder her own assessment. “I’ve no wish to intrude on your grieving, lady, but as you well know, these events are of such significance to our world… and your own, as well… I must summon the others.”
I had no strength to explain that Gerick was innocent. What would it matter? “Do as you need. As long as I can stay with them for a while.”
She nodded, then took on the slightly vague expression of a Dar’Nethi who was speaking in someone else’s mind. When she was finished, I asked her about Ven’Dar.
“He collapsed once the Prince left the council chamber,” she said. “He lives, but has not regained his senses. We continue to hope.”
A short time later, Mem’Tara swept into the room, followed by a hobbling Ustele. Once she’d paid her respects to Karon, Mem’Tara began to examine the room, from every finger’s breadth of the walls and floor to the oily stain where the oculus, the mask, and the diamonds had vanished. Ce’Aret saw to old Ustele, who knelt hard-faced beside his son and grandson, laying his hand on the knife, perhaps to gain some understanding of the circumstances of its use. I believed it would tell him that Men’Thor had done the terrible deed, but I didn’t think it would tell him why or the part he himself had played in it. Even if it did so, I wasn’t sure that he would understand it. Who would mourn Men’Thor properly? Who would judge his place in Dar’Nethi history? Before very long, the old man shoved Ce’Aret aside and hobbled out of the room.
I watched all these activities with no more involvement than a star observing the actions of those of us who crept about on the world’s surface - until Mem’Tara, examining Karon’s body, reached out for the black pyramid. “No!”
I said, surprised at the strength of my own voice. “Don’t touch it.”
The dark-haired sorceress raised her eyebrows in question.
“I just - ” It was too personal. Too intimate. As if she were reaching out for Karon’s soul. I would not have him violated in such a way, even by someone well-intentioned. How could I explain it? Follow the Way… “Isn’t it true that the dead should not be moved for several hours? Isn’t that your custom?”
Mem’Tara nodded. “Why yes, that’s usual. So that the soul will have crossed the Verges and will not need to find its way back to this life. I was only going to examine the device, but if it concerns you, I’ll leave it for a while. But the Prince caused his own death…”
Dar’Nethi history and custom were very clear. No Healer would attempt to revive one who had caused his own death, especially a soul who had been returned to life once before. And no Healer in all of Gondai would touch Gerick.
My heart constricted, laboring to pump blood through my dry veins. “Thank you, Mem’Tara. That would be better.”
The tall woman moved on to other matters.
Roxanne began talking, then, allowing the safe solidity of speech to soothe her. She told me the story of her rescue from the Guardian’s dungeon, and how she had tried to order Gerick around and hurt him and humiliate him… and how she had never imagined that she could find friendship in that strange land. And then she told me then how Radele had come into the Masters’ Chamber at the Precept House while she was hiding there, waiting for Bareil…
“When he pulled out the ring and started it spinning, I knew it was wicked. Gerick was so horrified by the one in the cave of the Source, though he wouldn’t tell me what it was. But you had told me how he became a Lord and that the spinning ring was the Lords’ tool. Just seeing it made me feel sick. As the ring spun, this Radele began to speak, and I recognized his voice. He was the man I heard taunting my father on the night he was enchanted, the one touching him. If I’d had a weapon, I’d have killed him. Then I heard these other dreadful voices… horrid… just like here… though no one was in the room. As soon as Radele left, I ran out of the house. But I got lost and there were so many people around, and no one understood me. I thought that once it was daylight I could find my way. I’ve never been so glad to see anyone as I was when Paulo came running down the street, calling my name. But now - ” Tears dripped from the end of her nose. “By the Holy Twins, what manner of weakling queen will I be? I can’t stop talking. Can’t stop thinking.”
“You did the world a great service, Roxanne.” I put my arm around her and laid my cheek on her tousled hair. “This is just very hard.”
Ce’Aret offered one of her aides to attend us, so I sent Paulo and Roxanne with the woman to find something to eat. They needed something to do, while I, though I had no purpose in mind, had no desire but to stay exactly where I was. To leave was simply unthinkable.
I sat with my arms wrapped about my knees and began telling Karon and Gerick how desperately I would miss them. I crafted the words carefully in my mind as Karon had taught me to do so long ago. “It makes my head hurt when I have to sort out one of your thoughts from another,” he would say. “You always have fifteen ideas popping up at once, and very noisy opinions on all of them.” Ce’Aret and Mem’Tara must surely have believed I’d lost my mind to see me sitting by my dead family, smiling at the sweet remembrance. Or perhaps not. Finding joy, even in such overwhelming grief, was the very essence of the Dar’Nethi Way.
“Ah, Vasrin!” The exclamation came from behind me, startling me out of my drowsy contemplation.
“Ven’Dar!” The two Preceptors and I voiced our astonishment as one.
“A considerable delight to see you so quickly recovered, my lord,” said Ce’Aret, opening her palms and genuflecting. “We hoped.”