Daughter of Ancients (25 page)

“I suppose I'm a little more bruised than I thought.” I pulled open the door, wincing as even the vibrations of speaking lanced my spirit. “Will you bring me here another time and show me your wonder? Tell me about it.”

“Of course, I'll bring you again!” We started up the sloping passages that took us back to the steep stair. “Papa took me to the Bridge only once. I was so angry with him—I told you that—and he said that to appease me, he would show me something that he would never show my brothers or my Uncle J'Ettanne or anyone else in the world. Something that would be our secret forever. First he showed me how he shaped the chaos beyond the Gate into a landscape of his own choosing, how he reached out with his power and opened a way through it. Then, he shaped a mountain from the matter of the Breach, and he forced the Bridge to lead us up to the very pinnacle—a place like Skygazer's Needle, where we could look out and see the worlds spread out before us, poor wasted Gondai, the mundane world—so marvelous in its variety—and even the horrid chaos and random matter of the Breach. He said that when I came into my power, I would be able to do exactly as he had done. I so much wanted to try it with you beside me . . . to share it with you.”

Intrigued at the thought of such a view, I almost bade her take me back. But indeed as my spirit eased with our distance from the Gate, my bones and gut reminded me of the two concussions they had suffered the previous day. I again refused a Healer, though, as well as D'Sanya's offer to see to my injuries herself. I wished to experience no more Dar'Nethi enchantments than necessary that day.

 

We met Ven'Dar in a remote corner of the palace. He strode out of a columned walkway and joined us in a small cobbled courtyard, where a fountain centered a bed of fragrant herbs. Two men wearing the jewel-colored robes of the court accompanied him. One of them bowed to the prince and remained at the entrance to the walkway. A sword hung beneath his flapping robe. The second man stayed at the prince's elbow, his eyes scanning the upper-floor windows that overlooked the yard. Ven'Dar must be worried.

“My lady.” The prince extended his palms but did not bow. “I hope the night has revived your companion?” I garnered neither palms nor bow, but only a polite nod.

D'Sanya mirrored his gesture of respect, which named them equals, then gestured at me and smiled proudly. “Indeed my dear friend and noble protector finds Avonar more dangerous than his quiet Nimrolan Vale.”

“My good lord,” I said, bowing deeply with palms extended, as would be expected. My gloves had, of course, long found their way back onto my hands. “Gerick yn K'Nor. An honor to meet you, Your Grace.”

Ven'Dar nodded to Na'Cyd as well. The consiliar had been waiting in the courtyard when D'Sanya and I arrived.

Ven'Dar returned his attention to the Lady, expressing polite concern over her safety, offering some of his own guards to accompany her until the Zhid threat was under control. Though I listened to their talk, I retreated a few steps so as not to be too obvious about it. Na'Cyd did the same, ending up at my side.

“Master Gerick yn K'Nor,” he said softly, his expression impassive, his eyes fixed on the Lady and the prince. His free arm was at rest behind his back, his back straight as always. “I need to speak with you, sir. Alone.”

“In what regard?” I said, maintaining a similar posture, uncomfortable with the intimacy in the consiliar's tone.

“Last night's events. Your mission in the hospice.”

My
mission
? “My father is a guest of the Lady, Na'Cyd. I don't think—”

“I am aware of who your father is.” His tone did not change. His gaze did not stray from his mistress, who was unsealing a folded paper just delivered by one of Ven'Dar's guards. “It is urgent that I speak with you in private, young Lord.”

I snapped my head around.
Young Lord
. . . Earth and sky, he knew. He, too, was one of the Restored.

“Na'Cyd!”

The Lady's call startled me. She clapped one hand to her breast, staring at the unfolded paper as if it carried plague. “Something dreadful has happened!”

The gray man dropped his free hand to his side, all attention. “My lady?”

“Cedor was found dead last night in the hospice paddock. Gen'Vyl says it appears that his heart stopped, though he's found no cause for it. The staff is upset . . . the residents hearing rumors . . . We must go back at once.”

“Of course there is no need for you to go back, my lady,” said Na'Cyd smoothly. “Your business in Maroth is urgent. The new hospice could shelter so many more who need your care. I shall go back and take care of these matters. It is my place.”

“If you're sure . . . and you'll call on me if you have any difficulty. Poor Cedor . . .”

“Of course, my lady. I'll leave at once.”

“. . . and you must find the kindest, most careful attendant for Master K'Nor.” She beckoned me close and examined me carefully. “Do you need to go back, as well, dear friend, to see to your father? Will he be afraid? I would miss you so, but—”

“He will accept it as part of Cedor's Way,” I said. “After yesterday, I think I should stay with you.”

 

In a flurry of suggestions, good wishes, and warnings to be careful, Na'Cyd set out for the hospice, and D'Sanya and I for Maroth. As the consiliar had not told anyone of my identity as yet, I presumed he had no intention of doing so. But over the next three weeks, I constantly debated my decision to continue the journey. On one day I felt reckless and cruel to abandon my father and his failing instincts to chance. On the next I played my calculation game again: If D'Sanya was innocent, then she was in more need of protection than my father, and if she was guilty, then I would only discover it in her company. The only fact that gave me solace was that the danger of exposure was more mine than his.

In truth, I had little time to worry about Na'Cyd or wonder what he had been so anxious to tell me. But I sent a letter to my father by way of Paulo, warning him to be wary of the consiliar and to mistrust whatever new attendant was assigned him.

Never in all the years since I first entangled my life with the Dar'Nethi sorcerers had I felt so useless, so unnecessary, so absolutely incapable of affecting the outcome of events. Even in the ten years between Karon's execution and the day he came back to me in the body of a Dar'-Nethi prince, I had been in control of my own survival. Even in my despair as I had watched Gerick's transformation into a Lord of Zhev'Na, I had refused to let go of him, and my words had woven a thread that helped draw him back from the abyss. Even in these past months while watching Karon die, my days had been filled with purpose—to gather him close and give him what comfort love could provide.

But now Karon was gone, spending his last days in an exile I could not share, and Gerick was off with him pursuing truth and forgiveness. No matter how often Ven'Dar spared a quarter of an hour to ask my judgment of Karon's letters or so kindly inquired what word I'd had from Gerick, I knew I wasn't needed. What use had anyone in Gondai for a middle-aged woman with no talent for sorcery?

I slammed my book onto the table, causing the lamp to flicker dangerously and my young hostess to stick her head into the sitting room. “Is all well with you, my lady? Is there anything I may—”

“No, Aimee. I'm sorry. I'm just unpardonably rude and impossibly restless. No one can do anything for me until I decide on what, in the name of heaven, I'm going to do with myself.”

I didn't want to be “done for.” I wanted to do something—anything—to get this over with. And, of course, even as I wished it, I understood that I was wishing Karon back to his dying. If I could just be with him . . . But a casual touch by any Dar'Nethi could reveal that I was mundane. My face might be recognized. The sight of the three of us together might trigger a question that would lead to discovery, wasting all these weeks' work.

“A plague on that woman!” I said.

“Surely these matters will not take long to resolve,” said Aimee. “With Master Karon's wisdom and your son's power . . . and their friend, Master Paulo, is so capable and devoted. . . .”

“My husband writes that no conclusion is in sight. They've found nothing to prove that the Lady D'Sanya is not everything she appears to be, yet clearly doubts remain. And with these vicious happenings in the north, they must be sure of her.”

“Would you like company for a while, my lady? I've slept so ill of late that I keep drowsing over my work. I'm on the verge of feeling entirely useless.”

“Of course.” I couldn't seem to concentrate on anything.

Aimee carried in a large basket of yarn, sat on the couch beside me, and began winding the yarn into spools. “The Lady D'Sanya seems to have done only good deeds in all these months. My sister writes that she has reforested the worst devastation in Erdris Vale, where the Gardeners believed ten years would be required. And my father's older brother, blinded by Zhid sorcery in his youth, was hired to do the water-seeking for the Lady's new hospice in Maroth. When she saw him struggling to mark his plans so the Tree Delvers would know where to set their saplings, the Lady brushed her hands on his eyes and he could see for the first time in thirty years. He told my sister that he would happily be blind again if fate ordained, for he'd had the chance to look upon the beauteous daughter of D'Arnath and found her worthy of her father's name. Everyone in Maroth marvels at her kindness and her good works.”

Perhaps it was my general irritability or just the fact that I had never known anyone to live up to such a singularly virtuous reputation, but as I listened to Aimee's glowing report, I set myself the task to find Lady D'Sanya's flaw. I could not confront the woman, lest Karon and Gerick's subtler efforts come to naught, but I would investigate everything she'd done since she appeared so abruptly. She could not be so perfect as everyone believed.

“So is the Lady a Gardener or a Healer?” I said. “What true talent enables her to do all these things?”

Aimee wrinkled her brow, her fingers pausing. “I don't know that I've ever heard it said. It is most unusual for anyone to display such skills in so many disciplines. Though she cured my uncle's blindness and has healed the souls of many who were Zhid, I've never heard that she uses the healing rite as T'Laven or Master Karon does.”

The girl felt through her basket for another length of yarn, and a tickle of enchantment feathered my skin as she tested one and then another until she found a color that matched the rest of the spool she was winding. “Have you asked D'Sanya about your own sight, Aimee?”

“Ah, well . . .” Aimee closed her eyes and dipped her head a little as if to dismiss my question. Speaking of herself always gave her pause, yet she had never been awkward about her infirmity.

“Come, tell me. Have you?”

“My blindness is of nature, not enchantment, and long before I could remember, my dear father tried every Healer in Avonar with no result. Though I've never been other than content with the Way laid down for me, my sisters urged me to speak to the Lady after our uncle's change. And so, one day when I met her at the palace, I asked her to examine me. She neither spoke the Healers' invocation nor used the blood-rite as she tested me, and so I suppose we must conclude that she is not a true Healer.”

“And what did she say?”

“She was most profoundly grieved. When she laid her cheek on mine, I could feel her tears. ‘Would I could remedy nature's cruelties along with those of men,' she told me. I assured her that it was truly of little matter to me. I could not deem nature cruel, but rather immensely generous to make me an Imager, who could envision things so vividly in my mind, and to give me a talented and loving family to help me develop my skills and put up with my clumsiness.”

Aimee—who could not be certain of a person's presence or identity if that person had not spoken to her—was unaware of the new arrival who stood in the doorway of her sitting room, listening as she expressed her contentment with her life. She could not see the thin, freckled face and understand instantly that she need never suffer a moment's unhappiness that a sworn worshipper could prevent. The poignancy of the scene was almost enough to soothe my irritation.

Aimee paused thoughtfully. “The good Lord Je'Reint once said that—”

“Paulo,” I said, interrupting before the girl's good-hearted affection for the whole world—and her frank admiration for Ven'Dar's deposed successor—drove another stake into poor Paulo's heart. “A perfect time for you to join us.”

“Master Paulo!” As with every visitor, Aimee jumped up to greet the newcomer as if he were the one person in the world she had been yearning to welcome. Three balls of yarn rolled from her lap to bounce and unwind themselves in colorful disarray across the floor.

“My lady. Mistress Aimee.” Paulo bowed to each of us, allowing no hint of either awe, admiration, or hopeless dejection to touch his voice. From the leather pack hung over his shoulder, he brought out a single folded sheet of paper and gave it to me. “I've only the one today, ma'am.”

Knowing that Paulo and Aimee would forgive my rudeness, I read Karon's letter right away. Two short paragraphs. Nothing he hadn't said five times before. Even his handwriting was listless and straggling. Blinking away the pricking in my eyes, I stuffed the letter in my pocket and turned back to the others.

Paulo had retrieved Aimee's yarn, the colorful mass looking odd in his hard, bony hands. “Here, miss.” He thrust the tangle into her graceful fingers. “Sorry. I seem to have made a mess of your thread.”