The consiliar rolled over and sat up, his face impassive as he gazed up at Gerick. "I owed your father a favor. I thought that killing his attendant, whose reclaimed soul was reverting to its corrupted past, was fit recompense for your father's reversal of my own vile state. And I wanted him to know why the killing was done."
Gerick was startled. "Then my father … not D'Sanya . . . restored you."
"In the first year of his reign in Avonar." Na'Cyd rose and briskly brushed the dead leaves from his dark jacket and breeches, seemingly none the worse for his encounter. "I had hoped to share two pieces of information that morning, the first, as I said, for your father, the second for you. You, or at least your horse, saved my life in that same attack. You had no way of knowing I valued my life so little, and so, you, too, had earned some compensation. I had observed you besotted with a woman who never bothered to speak your name, and thus blind to certain truths that lay in front of your nose."
He reached into a pocket and pulled out something that he dropped into Gerick's hand with a faint chinking noise.
With one finger Gerick lifted up a thin chain from which dangled a gold pendant, shaped like an animal. "D'Sanya gives these to the Zhid she heals," he said, puzzled.
"Indeed;" said Na'Cyd. "And this particular one I yanked from the neck of the man I fought that night in Avonar."
Gerick let the chain drop into his cupped hand. "So those who attacked us were more of D'Sanya's Restored who had reverted."
"Perhaps, perhaps not," said Na'Cyd, folding his arms in front of him.
The two of them might have been discussing next week's dinner menu at the hospice.
"Actually I don't think the fellow had ever been restored," said the consiliar. "His emptiness was . . . profound. What I tried to tell you was that when I hung this pendant about my neck later that night, trying to understand its decided allure, I felt an immediate compulsion to retreat … to regroup … to take a position with the rest of my cadre on the north road out of Avonar for the purpose of taking the Lady prisoner if she should ride out of the north gate. Do you understand? The need to obey this instinct was very difficult to resist. It took my entire being … my soul, if you will . . . to refuse."
"And when you removed the pendant . . ." said Gerick, eager now, obviously comprehending something I did not.
"I no longer felt obliged to obey."
"The commanders are marshaling the Zhid through the pendants," Gerick said. "They can issue orders to each general, to each cadre, to each warrior if they choose."
"That's why they wanted her prisoner: to make even more of the pendants for those Zhid who do not yet have them. For Dar'Nethi they plan to turn." Na'Cyd pulled a sharpened bit of wood from his pocket and scraped dirt from under his fingernails. "I felt that compulsion . . . understood it . . . while I wore the pendant. She enables the revival of the warrior legion."
Indignation rose up in my chest like steam in a spewing geyser as I grasped the enormity of this news. I wanted to throttle the man, so coolly grooming himself while Dar'Nethi fought and died in the desert. "Why haven't you told someone, you bastard? It's been months!"
Na'Cyd tilted his head to the side. A smile played around his lips as if I were some toy, wound up for his amusement. "You don't grasp my intentions even yet, Mistress Jen'Larie. I care nothing for Avonar or Gondai or the Bridge or the mundane world beyond it. Once, long ago, I lived a life that I believed was of some value, and the universe proved to me that what I valued did not matter. Through no choosing of my own, I became everything I loathed for more than six lifetimes. I owed Prince D'Natheil a debt because he ended that loathsome part of my life. And I owed this young man some small thanks because he offered me a mortal service even though I did not want it. Beyond that, I owe nothing and desire nothing."
"But you care for the people in the hospice. I've seen you do great kindness. . . ."
"I keep order in the place I've chosen to live out my days."
Gerick snatched the little nail scraper from the consiliar's hand, tossed it aside, and gripped the older man's jacket at the shoulders, almost lifting him off the ground. "Do you know how power is fed to the avantir and the pendants?"
"No."
Gerick's voice remained deadly calm. "But you know of the oculus that creates this hospice, don't you? You know how and why the Lords used such devices. Does the oculus in this house channel the Lady's power to an avantir?"
Na'Cyd did not change expression. "I've seen the oculus, yes; I was to head the hospice at Maroth, so, of course, I had to know of the device that holds the enchantment and links it to the insets in the hospice walls. And I recall that the Lords used such devices to enhance and focus their power. As to whether some of Lady D'Sanya's power goes astray as it passes through this particular device . . ." He inhaled deeply and shrugged.
"I must know," Gerick said, shaking the consiliar. "If you can't tell me yes or no, then I have to destroy it and everyone in this place who depends upon it. Tonight."
Na'Cyd shook his head without sympathy or regret. "I don't know."
"Then live or die as you choose." Gerick thrust him away and stepped back.
"Wait!" I said. "You can't allow him to—"
Gerick plowed a fist into the man's head. The consiliar toppled to the ground.
Gerick crammed the lion pendant in his pocket. "We need to get on with this if you're still willing."
"I'm ready," I said. Why was I shaking? As we hurried through the garden and up the steps, I tried to get my thoughts in order. Knife, sheath, ring, measuring cord … I had lost my scarf, but could use the soft leather purse looped onto my belt. "We'll need a tool or weapon to damage the oculus. We don't have Aimee's hand ax."
"The Lady has all manner of tools in her lectorium. You'll have a good selection." He tried the door latch and it opened readily at his touch. D'Sanya must not have expected him to visit her again.
The inside of the house was as dark as a Zhid's heart, the shuttered windows of the lower floor barring even the moonlight that had enabled us to see each other in the garden. Gerick took my hand and led me through the rooms and up the stairs. His hand was cold, his movements sure. A terrible thing to be sure of such dreadful doings. I was porridge on the inside.
The lectorium was as I remembered it: tall casements opposite the doorway where we stood, dark mirrored walls on right and left, the cluttered worktables, the hearth and its forge looming in the far left corner. She hadn't even removed the chain in the near left corner where she had hung Gerick to suffer and bleed.
"Where does she keep it?" The fact that we had walked through the house unhindered and unnoticed did not prevent me whispering.
"In there." Gerick pointed to an innocuous little cabinet that sat on carved legs in the center of the room. The black lacquered doors caught a beam of moonlight from the window. "She doesn't lock it. The oculus is not something just anyone could steal. Certainly not I."
Vasrin's hand, I'd forgotten! I peered into the shadows as if living phantasms might be creeping up on me. "Should you be so close?"
"Just don't open the cabinet until I'm out of this body." He released my hand and crossed the room to the windows, taking a route which kept him as far as possible from the cabinet. Arranging the cushions to support his back, he drew up his legs and wedged himself crosswise in one of the window seats. He opened the casement a crack and peered out before settling against the cushions. The moonlight sliding through the glass panes left his face all angles and shadows. It looked almost as if he were smiling at me. "I'll try not to fall out of the window. Are you ready?"