Son of Avonar (21 page)

“I will find out, you know—or someone will who's even less to your liking. There have been other inquiries about this ‘groom.' ”

“I've no need of your concern.”

Our voices had risen through the conversation, but Rowan's next words were spoken quietly. Only their edges were hard. “Ah, but others might. Jacopo and Paulo have no noble relations to protect them from the consequences of their actions. If you have any feeling for them—if you are capable of feeling—you should consider your course carefully.”

As the threat hung in the air like smoke from summer grassfires, the sheriff took my arm again, and steered me down the road to a stable where his horse stood saddled and waiting. “Time to go home, ‘Cousin,' ” he said, gesturing me toward his horse. “No more foolish playacting and no more sneaking about Grenatte. You will take yourself and your young accomplice back to Dunfarrie, and you will remain there until I return.”

“You're not planning to drag me back yourself? What if I, in my fiendish perversity, dare to disobey?”

“No, you go alone. I've business in Grenatte today. You'll swear to me that you'll do as I say, and I'll believe you. But of course if I should find out you've disobeyed me, you'll spend the rest of the week in the gaol.”

“You wouldn't dare!”

“You've told me many times that your rank has made no difference in your punishment. I live by your words.” Rowan unslipped the reins from the tether rail and stuffed them in my hand. “Take Thunder. He'll carry both you and Paulo. I'd rather not have to dig any more graves in During Forest tomorrow, and mounted travelers are at less risk. Tell Paulo to bring Thunder back to me first thing tomorrow morning and I might not whack him for tormenting his gram.”

I wanted to refuse any gift tainted by Rowan's hand, but simple reason curbed my tongue. Amid all the confusion of the sheriff's motives, one thing was certain. Aeren and his friend must be long gone before Rowan's return. If riding the cursed sheriff's horse helped that happen, then, by holy Annadis's sword, I would ride.

 

We made good time on our return journey. Baglos had his own mount and rode skillfully. I was unable to question him along the route as I had planned, for he raced north along the dusty road as if the doom of the world were indeed riding with him.

When we turned onto the narrow track that led up to the meadow, we had to slow, for the track was all dry gouges and ruts, left from some long-ago year of harsh rains. “Is it much farther, woman?” asked Baglos, his voice reflecting my own anxiety.

“No. Just over that rise.”

“Is it a safe place? A large city, a village? This village I have visited before?”

“It's only a cottage. Dunfarrie is an hour's walk.”

“Are there trees, then?”

I thought the question curious. “A whole forest of them. Aeren—D'Natheil—sleeps under the trees. And when the light was so strange, he took us into the wood, but we never saw anyone.”

Baglos brightened considerably. “So he knows to go to the trees. Perhaps he's not forgotten as much as you think.”

The drought-starved meadow was just as I had left it the previous day, an ocean of limp gray-green rippled by the hot breeze, cheered here and there by a clump of stareye or stately stalks of pink and silver lupine. The cottage sat squat and peaceful in the middle of it.

Paulo gave a whoop and let Thunder race the last distance across the meadow. Jacopo came out of the house to meet us and steadied me as I slipped from the saddle. “So Paulo has brought you home riding, eh? He's quite a boy, wouldn't you say?”

Paulo grinned and led the horses off toward the copse and the spring.

“Where's Aeren?” I said.

“He's been poking about the woodpile all morning. A strange one, he is. Never know whether he's going to break your neck or shake your hand.” Jaco peered over my shoulder at my companion, who was straightening his tunic and straining his eyes about the meadow. “Looks like you've been successful in your business.”

“Yes, this is Baglos, a friend of Aeren's. Baglos, this is my friend Jacopo. . . .”

Aeren strolled around the corner of the cottage carrying a forearm-sized piece of wood. At the sight of us, he increased his pace straightaway. Giving Baglos not so much as a passing glance, he planted himself just in front of me and, with unpleasant grunts and most explicit gestures, expressed his displeasure at my long absence.

Before I could respond, Baglos crowded in between us. He dropped to his knees, grabbed the young man's hand, and kissed it. Aeren growled and jerked his hand away, waving the kneeling Baglos aside. When a confused Baglos failed to move, Aeren snarled and raised the piece of wood over the man's dark head.

“Ce'na davonet, Giré D'Arnath! Detan eto.”
As he cried out, Baglos raised his arms to shield himself.

Aeren paused and dropped his hand, flicking his fingers toward his own ears and then toward the smaller man's mouth, as if he'd heard something in the exclamation that interested him.

Baglos showered Aeren with words in a flowing musical language, most of them shaped as questions. Aeren understood the words, which seemed to soothe his dangerous irritation, but I saw no light of recognition in his eyes, and to none of Baglos' questions did he answer other than in the negative.

After a goodly time of this, Aeren pointed to his mouth and then to his head with a most humorously eloquent gesture, telling Baglos that the two appendages were equally useless. Aeren's changing humors were as spring on the northern moors, a continual race between sunlight and storm. Baglos bowed and backed away, gazing sorrowfully on the young man who sat down in the grass and turned his attention to his limb of birchwood, peeling off the bark as if he were expecting to find something underneath, but wasn't quite sure what it might be.

“Ah, woman, I did not believe it possible that D'Natheil could have truly forgotten himself,” said Baglos, holding his clasped hands to his chest, the color of his complexion gone sallow. “But your surmise is entirely correct. He recognizes nothing I speak of. We are lost if he cannot remember. And I cannot guide if he has forgotten the words to command me.” He tugged at his disheveled tunic, straightened his shoulders resolutely, and bowed to me. “But this is not your burden. I will take him away now, and we will trouble you no more.”

“No!” I blurted out the word more forcefully than I intended. “You can't take him away yet. We should eat something before you go. He's been ill. . . .”

“He does not belong in this place. He has duties. In the name of the Dar'Nethi Preceptorate, I thank you for your kindness.” The forlorn Baglos cast his eyes down and walked back to Aeren, bowing once again.
“Ce'na, D'Natheil”
—Aeren's head popped up as he spoke—
“ven t'sar—”

“Baglos, look,” I said. “He recognizes his name.”

Baglos had already noticed and dropped to his knees beside the young man, chattering rapidly. An exasperated Aeren soon clamped his hand over the smaller man's mouth and toppled him over backwards.

“Give him time,” I said, helping Baglos sit up and brush the grass and dirt from his shirt. “Take it more slowly.”

But the little man waved off my help. “Foolish woman. There is no time. Everything is prepared . . . waiting . . . This was not part of the plan. The Zhid have done this—I felt their icy breath at the crossing—and I've not the skill to reverse it. Everything depends on me, but with this . . . I don't know what to do.” Such profound distress surely had origins somewhere far beyond irritable masters and momentary confusion.
Our last hope,
he had said.

“He understands your language. Perhaps if you were to tell me more of him, then, between the two of us, we could make him remember what he needs to know.”

The little man sighed and rubbed his brow with his fist. “If only remembering were enough. Since the ruinous attempt to send him, he has not been capable—” Baglos glanced over at Aeren, dropping his voice though the young man was preoccupied with his wood-shaping. “He never regained even the small skills he had as a boy. You would not understand the importance of these skills, as they are not abilities your people possess.”

“Skills?” I approached with caution. “What kind of skills? He seems to be a talented warrior and very intelligent.”

“I speak of what a mundane would call magic. Sorcery.” Baglos spoke as casually as one might mention a gift for poetry or painting or baking.

I breathed a prayer that my instincts were correct. “He has done magic here.”

Baglos sat paralyzed, eyes stretched almost round. “How is that possible? And why didn't you tell me?”

“I wasn't sure if you knew he could. It's not a thing to mention lightly. The law of the Four Realms . . . surely you know that.” I told him of the knife and the plants and the fire.

“What knife is this?” He sprang from the ground like a new-vented geyser.

“We found it on the hilltop and believed it had some connection to Aeren because of the symbol on it. It's the one he uses even now.” Aeren had pulled out the dagger and was diligently scraping his piece of birch.

Baglos's eyes now filled half his face. “You told me that he wore nothing and carried nothing, but this is the Heir's dagger, D'Arnath's dagger . . . our safety . . .” His olive skin paled even further to the color of milky tea. “The sword . . . he carried no sword, did he? Please tell me he did not.”

“I've seen no sword. He's been looking for one.”

Baglos exhaled deeply and shook his head. “You say he does not recognize the knife, but he was able to penetrate the rock with it. This is astonishing! He was never able to do these things since his injuries when he was twelve. It is one reason we are so afraid. That he will never be capable”—he snapped his teeth together. “Yes, woman, we will stay for a while and learn more of you. The Preceptors are wise beyond the ways of the Dulcé. Perhaps this is not entirely the work of the Zhid, for if D'Natheil has done magic . . .”

I shrugged my shoulders at Jacopo—no hope of understanding everything at once—and sat down near Aeren, patting the turf beside me. “Please sit down, Baglos, and start at the beginning. Who are these Preceptors? Who is D'Natheil?” I motioned the younger man to pay attention.

Baglos began his tale, speaking first in his own language to Aeren, then in Leiran for Jacopo and me. Setting aside his occupation, Aeren listened carefully to the little man's words, the afternoon breeze rippling his light hair.

“There are things of which I am permitted to speak and things of which I am not permitted to speak without D'Natheil's command. And there are many things I do not know at present. Do you know anything of the Breach or D'Arnath's Bridge?” began Baglos.

The young man shook his head, and I did the same.

“Well, I cannot tell you that part, because I don't know it properly today, and truly it is a great mystery that is beyond my understanding, even if it was a time when I could tell you of it. D'Natheil could tell you if he could remember, or I could tell you if D'Natheil would command me, but I don't know how we will teach him of it if we do not know it correctly.” Baglos was in despair again, here at the beginning.

Unable to construct anything sensible from this rambling, I tried to get him to start again. “Just tell us about Aeren and how you come to be here. You honor him as a lord, and I've seen enough of his manner to know it must be true. What is his family? Where do you come from? Has he truly grown up in a Vallorean temple school with those priests?”

“Certainly not! He has not lived with the Zhid. Zhid lie as easily as they breathe. They are no priests of any god I know, which is, of course, only Vasrin of the Two Faces: Vasrin Creator, who squeezed nothingness in his mind's fist to create matter, and Vasrin Shaper, who formed matter into the shapes of her dreaming—earth and sea and those of us who walk here. D'Natheil is the Heir of the royal line of D'Arnath, a prince you would call him. The mark on the dagger—it is the shield of his family.”

“A prince. I knew it.”

“We have had no king since the mighty D'Arnath. His successors see their highest honor in being named his Heir. For a thousand years the Heirs of D'Arnath have held the safety of Avonar in their hands. They have walked the world Bridge through the darkest perils. They have led us in the war against the Lords of Zhev'Na and their warrior Zhid. They have ruled with strength and justice and honor, bearing the hope of our people—both Dar'Nethi and Dulcé—that the Breach would one day be healed and the Wastes restored. But since the Battle of Ghezir, when the Zhid stole D'Arnath's sword and dagger and closed the Gates, our hope has waned, for the Bridge cannot be maintained while the Gates are closed. D'Natheil is the sixty-third Heir of D'Arnath. Since the Gates were closed, thirty-four Heirs lived and waited and died in vain, for we had become too weak to reopen them. We hoped against failing hope that the Exiles might open the way, to aid the Heir in his task as is their duty.”

I was at a loss already, grasping at bits that were comprehensible, even if they made no sense. “A thousand years! What family can be traced back a thousand years? Not even the Kerotean priest-kings claim such lineage.”

“Yes. His family is very old, but he is the last. All the others of his line are dead. That has been our great dilemma. When the Gates were opened against all expectation, D'Natheil had only just come of age and been anointed. There was a great dispute among the Preceptors that day—the Preceptors are our wisest and most powerful leaders, who advise the Heir in all matters of power and talent—matters of sorcery, as you would say. Some thought to send D'Natheil immediately to walk the Bridge for fear we would lose the chance to repair and strengthen it, but Master Dassine argued that the boy was untrained and, at only twelve years, too young to survive the attempt. The other Preceptors overruled Dassine, and D'Natheil and Baltar were led to the Gate, but when they attempted the passage, D'Natheil was thrown from it with terrible injury, and Baltar, my cousin, lay dead.