Their prisoner, not their pupil, not one of them like me. I hoped, beyond anything I had ever hoped, that I remembered truth.
"And what of the thousand years since? Did they carry out that plan?"
"That … I don't know … I presume they did. You woke me up."
Chapter 18
By the time my father was halfway through his reply to Ven'Dar's letter, telling him of my conclusions, he was asking me to repeat everything I'd said. The third time he scratched out an entire paragraph and asked to whom he was writing this letter, I took the pen from his hand, helped him to bed, and promised to write the letter myself so that Paulo could take it back to Avonar first thing the next day.
"Do you think the knot on his head will heal, here in this place?" Paulo asked.
"I hope so. But I don't know whether it's my fist or this place that's affected him tonight."
"I've seen it. Some nights when I come, I can't get him to talk at all at first," Paulo said, shaking his head. "Most nights, after I've been here a while, he gets back in his head. But sometimes not."
"Now I'm more sure of D'Sanya, I'll ask her about it," I said.
If I could ever persuade D'Sanya to talk about sorcery, I had a number of things to ask her. My mother had written to ask about D'Sanya's true talent, and I wasn't familiar enough with most of the hundred talents even to make a guess. The Lords' memories had told me only that they planned to discover her skills and find a proper use for them . Had anyone ever hired a sorrier spy?
Paulo returned to his place in front of the fire and, with the ease I had always envied, was soon snoring. My hand steady again, I wrote the letter for Ven'Dar, sealed it with my father's ring, and then wrapped the blanket about my shoulders and thought about sleeping. It was impossible.
An avantir had survived the Lords' death. That was hard to swallow. But I had told Ven'Dar everything I knew. I had done what I could, and survived the remembering. He and D'Sanya would have to deal with it as best they could. That should be reassuring.
Of course I dreaded what was to come with my father if we declared our mission satisfied. But I could not wish him to linger here as he was. Was it the hospice enchantment that had such terrible effect on him, or was it that by living here he had abandoned the Way of his ancestors? Having read his manuscript, I could not but think the latter as likely as the former. That same could be true of all the hospice residents. The Way was more important to them than I'd ever understood.
And D'Sanya? Though concern for my father and the news of the avantir dampened my elation, I treasured the discovery I had made. The Lords were dead. Their plan for her had come to naught. The power of life she held was stronger than they had ever imagined. I believed her. Tomorrow held the promise of the future. We had come so far already, the rest would take care of itself.
So, why could I not sleep?
As I stared at the dwindling fire, loathsome images swirled in my head like the scum stirred up from the bottom of a very old cistern. Hoping to make them settle again, I focused my mind on pure flame … on clean nothingness. . . .
A sharp stab through my earlobe. Whispers . . . Power awaits you, young Lord. Dip your hand in the blood; the slave doesn't need it any more. Taste it . . . the world exists to feed your hungers. . . .
I jerked awake, shuddering, the flat coppery taste lingering on my tongue. No good. An empty head would not do. So think of something else. Something beautiful . My eyes sagged again, and I imagined D'Sanya riding. . . .
. . . her hair streaming out behind her, cheeks flushed with the wind and the joy of her freedom . . . I caught her, and we laughed and ran across the garden, the shower driving us inside. The rain hammered down as we sat by the fire, the flames made more beautiful by their reflection in her eyes. I inhaled her scent, of new grass and clean air. Felt the comforting weight of her head in the hollow of my shoulder, and her soft fingers as they traced the line of my jaw and then reached for my hands. . . . No, she mustn't see. Where are my gloves? Gods, no! She turned my palms up, ready to kiss them. But instead she pulled away, fear and revulsion twisting her face. "You're one of them . . . one of them . . . one of them . …"
I sat bolt upright, heart pounding, sweat pouring from me, my body clenched in a confusion of desire and terror. But the echoes of her horror and disgust did not fade. Throwing the blanket aside, I let myself out the garden door into the soft midnight, hurried through the public gardens and into the paddocks and fields, then leaped the wall, moving ever faster, so that by the time I came to the meadow I was running.
For a blinding hour I raced through the patchy woodlands and the tall grass of the open valley under the black dome of the sky, pushing harder and harder so that the remnants of dreams and memories might be flushed from my head. Stumbling over rock and exposed roots, refusing to slow down, I pushed up the steep rift where D'Sanya had taken me on our first ride. At last I dropped on my knees by the pool, plunging my entire head into the water trying to cool the pounding, throbbing ache, fighting for some clarity of reason if I could not find oblivion.
What had I been thinking these past weeks? That the scars on my hands would go away? That because I wore leather gloves when we rode, and silk gloves when we danced, and hid my grotesque telltales in my pockets or behind my back unless we were in the dark, I could pretend that they didn't exist?
I loved D'Sanya more than I had loved anyone in my life; I desired her so passionately that I cried out there by her quiet pool. She had lived in the place where I was formed. She understood the helpless desperation you feel as your soul grows tainted and withered, as corruption steals away first one bit, then another, of your honor, your beliefs, and your values. My parents and Paulo were immeasurably precious to me, but they could never share it, never understand completely the dread of losing your soul and the certainty that it was accomplished. D'Sanya had been stronger than I. She had resisted for longer and come out with more of herself— still able to see beauty where it existed, able to embrace the fullness of life. But she had lived where I had lived. If any person in Gondai might comprehend the meaning of the scars on my hands and be able to forgive me for them, it was D'Sanya. But I was mortally, desperately afraid that she would not.
And so I had named it at last. The root of my fear. Spent and hollow, like a log burned out to make a shell boat, I began the long walk back to the hospice.
Today. I would tell her . . . show her . . . today. We would meet at dawn, and I would savor the rosy light on her hair and relish the welcoming in her face when she saw me coming. I would cherish her laughter as we rode out across the green meadows, and listen to her unending words of wonder at the ways of life. But when we returned, before I kissed her or held her in my arms, I would strip off my gloves and show her who it was loved her.
Satisfied in my resolve I climbed over the hospice wall and slogged through the vast parkland. The silence hung heavy as the night dwellers retreated into their sanctuaries, the dawn greeters not yet ready to begin their business. Less than an hour remained until sunrise. As always, the darkness demonstrated the fullness of its power, holding deep and black and still before approaching daylight could dilute it. I dully weighed an hour of exhausted stupor on my father's couch against an excursion to the kitchens to find something to quiet the gnawing in my stomach. I chose the latter, afraid that if I fell asleep, I would never wake up in time.