Father ! Despair and grief and denial ripped through me like lances of fire. It was not me. I was not yet born. . . .
Searing lightning yet again. Only an instant's glimpse of the still figure on the table and I was no longer in the winter forest or the city of horror, but in the desert. . ..
The heat sapped the last residue of moisture from my lips; the sun hammered on the back of my head.
"Here they come."
"About time. The Slavemaster'll be fit to eat someone for 'em being this late."
The voices were below me, Zhid warriors standing guard duty on the hard-baked desert road, peering into the dust haze to see the gray unwieldy shape resolve itself into a ragged column of half-naked men roped together. Their skin was burned dark by the sun, their lips blackened and cracked, most of them scarcely able to lift their raw, bloody feet. Flies buzzed and stuck to backs streaked with garish mementos of the lash.
"Move on!" shouted the guard with a crack of his whip.
The dolorous column passed by my hiding place, and the doors of the cages slammed behind them with a metallic clang. I knew what came next. My knife was in my hand, and I scrambled down from my rocky perch and sped down the cracked earth of the road. Any child with power could undo the lock. If I was fast, the guards would never expect it —an uncollared Dar'Nethi in the middle of the camp .
The first despairing screams came from the building beyond the cages as I reached for the gate. And then a hairy arm, slick with sweat, wrapped itself about my throat. "What is this? Did we miss one? Shall we drink its blood or collar it with the rest of them?"
"Never again!" I shouted. "I'll not allow it."
"Not allow? Let us show you who will allow what …."
My hand that held my knife was wrapped around behind me, until I was forced to drop the weapon to make them stop . . . only they didn't stop. I screamed as my shoulder snapped. But the warrior was dragged off my back and I lay in the dirt sobbing. . . .
Get away! Run! I cannot hold!
. . . only to wake again to a roaring blast of heat from a fiery furnace. I was stretched upon the tilted slab as a wide strip of glowing metal was pulled from the fire, but before they could wrap it about my neck, the Zhid who held me down was jerked away and thrown to the ground .
Get away from here! Run! Their collars are real. Their knives are real. You'll be trapped here if you stay. . . .
The desert noonday blinded me as I stumbled out of the smithy, cradling my arm, tears of pain and frustration running from my face. . . .
The sunlight vanished. I moaned with the pain of my torn shoulder, which did not vanish with the fire and the Zhid. Clutching my arm, I crept closer to see if the man on the table was truly flesh or stone, alive or dead or only another vision. He looked dead. No trace of color in lips or cheeks, his skin with the waxy pallor of those who have lost an inordinate amount of blood. His eyes were open, one of them half occluded by the stone. They were sunken and hollow, wholly black, as they had been when he was a favored guest of the Lords of Zhev'Na and would return from his nights of sorcery with his hosts. I did not believe he could see anything in the world I walked.
"Can you hear me?" I whispered.
Get away from here . His lips did not move, but it was not the voice of my own fears that spoke in my mind, nor had it been throughout that wicked day. Go. I cannot hold for long .
"We've come for you, your friend Paulo and I."
No ! A surge of fear, grief, and despair came near knocking me off my feet. Get away! You can do nothing for me. Tell them . . . tell my father . . . Ah … A groan resonated in my thoughts, and blood ran from his blackened eyes like tears of horror. Spears of brilliance shot from the spinning ring once more. . . .
. . . and I was standing on a tower in Avonar, watching as the Zhid swarmed over the city walls. The empty-eyed warriors slaughtered the Dar'Nethi one by one as the desperate defenders fell back through the streets. Warning bells rang. Balefires burned on the heights like scarlet demon eyes. Behind me refugees streamed out of the rear gates, while below me, all around, and everywhere, Avonar, the City of Light, was in flames. The night had come. The last night. Unending slaughter. Unending darkness. Unending pain . . .
Truth held me in its steady gaze and left me no alternatives. While watching the destruction of all our hope, seeing wave upon wave of the soulless enemy pour through a ragged breach in the white walls, I fumbled for the dagger at my belt. My right arm unusable, my awkward left hand did the work in a place far distant from the nighttime battle that held my senses in thrall. The deed must be done before I could return from this place to the bowels of Zhev'Na.
"I'm sorry," I whispered, tearing at flimsy fabric, feeling for the right place. His flesh was already cold when I struck. As warm blood gushed over my hand, the vision of terror flickered and faded, and I stood once again in the Chamber of the Oculus, looking down on the tortured young man with my dagger in his heart. From the doorway behind me came a cry of dismay.
"Liar! Murderer! You'll die for this!"
My dagger clattered to the floor as a ragged, bloody Paulo pulled me away from his friend with a roar. Darkness fell as his fist proved to me the power of love and grief.
"He won't die. He won't die." From somewhere in the thrall of midnight, I willed the words past my thick tongue. I had to be fast or the matter of Gerick's dying would be of no importance next to the matter of my own. Was my timing always to be so wretched? I grasped for a handhold that would help me drag myself upright. Fool, not the right hand or you'll be flat out again . Darkness toyed with my senses until I was motionless long enough to banish it.
Now, again. Left hand on the cold, broken stone this time. When the streak of painful fire split my aching head, I thought I might be transported back into the young Lord's visions … or dreams or memories or whatever were these unending horrors to which he was condemned. But my distorted vision seemed to be only the result of the brain-rattling blow Paulo had laid on me when he saw me stabbing his dearest friend and king. Fortunately, he was so much stronger than me he felt no need to consummate his murderous intent before attending to the young Lord. My handlight had died out, leaving the lurid gleaming of the oculus our only illumination.
"He won't die." This time the words took shape in the air, though heavily distorted by my swollen lip. "She'll have worked it so he can't—even if he wants to."
The lanky figure whirled about, his freckled face ravaged with unashamed grief. "You meant to kill him all along. I knew it."
He hadn't heard me, and it hurt so much when he grabbed my hair and wrenched me to my knees that I wasn't sure I could say it again. His knife reflected the purple-green-and-gold light as he bared my throat, all the time the tears running down his grimy face. "I told you you'd die for it."
"Listen to me if you want to help him," I croaked. "He won't die from what I did. But I had to stop him.
His visions were going to kill us. I think my shoulder's broken, and not from falling down the stairs."
"You're a cursed traitorous liar. Why would I believe you?"
"He's breathing, Paulo. I stabbed him in the heart, but he's still breathing."
The blood welling out of the knife wound slowed, the red droplets rolling down the cocoon of shellstone that covered Gerick's flanks. But his chest still moved.