I sat up. The puffy-faced man with thinning hair sat in the small, bare room’s only chair. He rested his chin on one of his perfectly manicured hands and smiled, an expression as void of mirth as the room was of comfort.
“Who would have thought we’d be back here together?” he said. “Yet, you’re not really the one I knew, the incorrigible little beast who spat upon the most glorious heritage in the history of all worlds. You are someone else entirely.”
“That child still lives in me, and I remember everything of his time in your charge.”
“How do you know that the memory Dassine returned to you is accurate? Perhaps he colored what he gave you with his view of the world and of me.”
“No, Preceptor. I lived every moment of those years twice over. I knew Dassine as I’ll never know any other man, and he didn’t hate you half so much as I do.”
“Yet hate is quite alien to your present nature. How do you reconcile it?”
Search as I would, I could find no answer to that.
“As I thought. A difficult portion Dassine has left you.” He tapped his fingertips together rapidly. “Well, look at it this way: You were a child, and there were-and are- many things you don’t understand. If you are to survive what is to come, you must put aside your childish view. You must accept that nothing-nothing-you believe is immutable.”
“And what is to come?”
“First I’ll let you eat and refresh yourself a bit”-he nodded to the boxlike table where sat a tray laden with food, drink, a pile of towels, and a green porcelain basin from which steam was rising-“and then I will restore the remainder of your lost life. Unfortunately events do not leave us the time Dassine had. We shall have to proceed a bit more brutally… and not because I will enjoy it.”
“And if I refuse?”
He leaned forward, his cheeks flushed ever so slightly, his narrow eyes alight. “I saw your struggle when we pushed you to the boundaries of your knowledge. However much you despise me, I cannot believe you would refuse, even if you knew you would die in the next moment.”
He was almost right. “I would do anything to retrieve what I’ve lost except take it from Dassine’s murderer.”
Exeget smiled scornfully and settled back in the hard little chair. “Have you unraveled nothing of this mystery? I’ll not attempt to resolve for you the bothersome inconsistencies in your view of Dassine’s death. But while I leave you to your refreshment, I want you to think about this: Dassine sent you to me. Not to Madyalar, not to any of the others. You know Dassine chose words carefully: Give yourself to the Preceptorate for examination. Defenseless. If your childish indignation had not been clouding your judgment, only one possible course would have presented itself-surrendering to the Head of the Preceptorate. To me.”
I dismissed his jibes as quickly as he left the room. But as I took full advantage of the hot water and the mound of bread and cheese and cold meat, I could not but be drawn back to the most illogical aspect of Dassine’s murder: Bareil knew nothing of the abducted child. Why would Exeget, intending to murder Dassine, have given his rival information of significance? Ever convinced of his own superiority, Exeget would not stoop to taunt a victim.
And, of course, his logic echoed my own uneasy thoughts, that I had interpreted Dassine’s command according to my own desires… because I was afraid…
Exeget returned an hour later, smirking at the broken crockery in the corner of my room. “So is it yea or nay? Remember, your sanity is in question, not mine.”
I could not force myself to answer.
“Ahhh…” he growled. “When we are done, I’ll put your own knife in your hand and bare my neck to you. Will that satisfy your bloodthirsty inclinations? Do we work at this or not?”
I jerked my head. He seemed to understand. “You’ll need this.” He tossed a white robe into my hands, his composure regained. “When you’re ready, come to the lectorium. I’m sure you remember the way.” Exeget, my despised enemy.
Yes, I remembered the way to the cold and barren workroom where he had tried so brutishly to shove the practices of sorcery into my nine-year-old head. Muttering oaths, I stripped, donned the soft wool robe, and padded barefoot down the stairs.
When I entered the low-ceilinged chamber, the circle of candles was already alight. The dark stone columns and walls, void of decoration, seemed to swallow the candlelight.
“How is it you know of all this?” I said, waving my hand to encompass the luminous circle. Dassine had always claimed that his work with me was unique, unknown to any other Dar’Nethi, that I must follow his strictures if I ever wanted to be whole. Though Exeget’s lectorium was cool, deep in the rock below Avonar, a drip of sweat trickled down my tailbone.
“This is not the time for questions. Take your place.” He held out his hand for my robe.
Self-conscious as I had never been with Dassine, I gave it over and sat myself naked on the bare stone inside the circle. Fool! Fool! screamed my untrusting self.
Exeget tossed my robe onto the floor behind him with a snort, whether at my modesty or my fear, I couldn’t tell. But as the light grew, insinuating itself into my head and my lungs and the pores of my flesh, he spoke softly in my mind, Do not be afraid. I’ll not allow you to drown.
And so did I take up my life where it had been interrupted five days-or fifteen years-before, and on that very night, in the room where Exeget had so often railed at me for being soft and stupid and unworthy of my name, did I travel once again to the gracious house called Windham and meet my darling Seri in the freshness of her wide-eyed young womanhood. Her awakening intelligence soared, and she argued and laughed and studied, revealing to my Dar’Nethi soul a universe of marvels. We walked in her cousin Martin’s gardens and played chess in his drawing rooms, and when the blazing hearth of Windham faded into Exeget’s circle of candlelight, I cried out, “No! Let me go back! For love of the Creator, let me go back.”
“A moment. Drink this; it will sustain you.” Someone poured some thick and sour liquid down my throat, and before the blaze in my eyes had dissipated enough that I could see whose hands held the cup, I was embracing the fire once again.
Every day a delight in her friendship, not daring to think of anything more. We all knew she was meant for Evard and swore that such a marriage would be like confining the lightning to a cage. Martin warned me that there could be no future for the affection and regard I tried so vigorously and so ineptly to hide, for he knew my secret and the dangers it entailed. I was a sorcerer, doomed to run, to hide, and almost certainly to burn.
How long did I journey that first time in Exeget’s room? Three more times was I drawn back to the circle of fire, where I blindly gulped the murky liquid as a drowning man gulps air; three more times was I sent back again to Leire, to the happiest days I had ever known. The fifth time I came back a voice protested behind the roaring of the flames. “Enough, Master. You’ll kill him.”
“We’ll all be dead or worse if we cannot finish in time. But I suppose you’re right. We daren’t push it farther at first. But things will get no easier as we go.”
Hands, two pairs of them, drew me to my feet and wrapped my robe about me. I could not yet see for the blinding glare that filled my eyes, but as the two half walked, half carried me to my room, my senses emerged from their muffling and began to record the world around me once again. A crashing thunder growing in my ears could be traced to the tapping of a breeze-shifted branch on the window, the searing colors that soon shredded my eyes were but the muted grays of Exeget’s halls, and the vicious claws that must surely be raking bloody gashes in my arms were four gentle hands as they laid me on my pallet.