She laughed, and before I knew it, we came to the lower end of a sloping passage—nothing more than a massive wall of seamless, square-cut stone, darkened with age and smoke. D'Sanya stretched her hand toward the wall. The stone shifted and shaped itself to reveal a pair of wooden doors three times my height. They swung open to reveal the vast chamber, filled as always with cold white fire and billowing frost plumes.
"Now stay close. I am taking you through the Gate and onto the Bridge, where I will show you the most wonderful sight you will ever see! Not even Prince Ven'Dar knows of it. I've been saving my first venture for a special occasion—and what could be more special than being alive and free and keeping company with my bosom friend and dear protector?" She raised her arms, lifted her face, and danced through the doorway, spinning on her toes until she was out of sight.
I made it no farther than the doorway, where I stopped dead and clapped my hands over my ears. Unfortunately the horrid, scraping sensation was inside me, not outside.
The last time I stood in the Chamber of the Gate, I had just returned to my own body after our journey from Windham. I had thought the feeling that my spirit was an open wound immersed in salt water was the inevitable result of soul-weaving with my father's diseased body. But the chamber didn't feel so very different on this morning. Only to be expected, I supposed, as every other Dar'Nethi enchantment seemed to be having this effect on me.
I gathered control and shook off the disturbance as much as possible before D'Sanya could notice. Suffering ill effects from proximity to D'Arnath's Bridge had always been considered evidence of corruption.
When I entered the chamber, the Lady was kneeling on the smooth tile floor in front of the bronze lion, her head bowed and her palms spread wide. After a moment her eyes lifted to the lion's head and the gold and silver globes that some enchantment balanced far above us on the beast's upraised paws. I held back, knowing how she revered her father—the Lion of the Dar'Nethi, his people had called him. The Tormenter, the Talent-binder . . . those were the mildest of names given him in Zhev'Na.
In moments D'Sanya was on her feet again and beckoning me to join her. "Come see. Is this not a formidable lion? I commissioned it as soon as I was permitted to enter the chamber and view the Gate. I had it placed here after they anointed me, and I added the two orbs shortly after—to represent Gondai and the mundane world. It seemed only just that Papa should be remembered forever here beside his greatest work."
"It's a fine piece," I said, knowing nothing about it whatsoever. I would be doing well to keep from banging my jangling head against the thing. The light of the shifting Gate fire reflected off the metal globes—each of them an arm's length in diameter—so that beams of gold and silver light shot randomly across the chamber. The first one that struck my eyes came near boring a hole right through my skull.
D'Sanya tilted her head and examined me, tracing a finger along my cheek. "Are you well?"
"When you do that . . . yes," I said. Wholly the truth. Surely to bury my face in her breast would make the grinding illness inside me go away as well.
"Oh, holy Vasrin, I've dragged you down here on my silly whim, and your poor bones could be fractured from those vile firebursts! Prince Ven'Dar told me you refused a Healer last night. We must go up at once and see to your injuries."
If I had not already experienced the Bridge, my curiosity at her planned adventure might have overruled any physical ailment. But my previous crossings had shown me nothing so marvelous that it could persuade me to remain another moment in that chamber.
"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."