Dassine had told me that Aeren was another of my names, but that it was only an alias, not a third life to be remembered. I was grateful for that. The name was connected with my recent history-my mysterious second journey to the Bridge. Perhaps all three of them knew me from that time.
Lady Seriana… earth and sky, who was she? On this morning, when she was so angry with me, jagged rents had again appeared in the span of my vision. Through the terrifying gaps of darkness had poured such an oppression of guilt and sorrow that I would have done almost anything to escape it. But for Bareil nudging me to action, I might never have moved again. No, best not think of the lady.
I lay on my sunny rock as mindless as a cat, half asleep when Bareil came, bringing oatcakes and wine. “Is there some other service I may offer you, my lord?” The lines of worry carved so deep on his brow grieved me sorely.
“I can ask no more than you’ve already done today.”
“I do only as Master Dassine instructed me. Are you fully recovered?”
“For now. You were quick.”
“Then perhaps… The Lady Seriana would very much like to speak with you.”
Speak with the lady? The sunlit meadow suddenly wavered before my eyes, as though I gazed through the heat shimmer of a fire. “No. Not now. Tell her…”
How could I tell her that I was afraid of her? Clearly she knew more than she was telling me, yet I had to trust her, because Dassine did so. But whatever she knew and whatever she was drove me to the brink of madness. Any further along that course, and I would have to abandon the search, just to get away from her. Then I would be left with only the disturbing task of avenging Dassine. Better she think me a boor.
“Just tell her I won’t speak with her now. Perhaps later.”
“Nothing more?”
“Nothing more.”
CHAPTER 16
Seri
Though I tried to brush off Karon’s refusal to speak with me as a passing pique, he didn’t make it easy. As we left the snowy meadow, he vaulted into the saddle and rode out with Kellea before I’d even closed up my pack. When nightfall mandated the next halt, I tried to sidestep our disagreement. “Though the weather’s no warmer, at least the sky’s stayed clear,” I said, sitting down on the log next to him as Kellea doled out our supper, “but a night in Iskeran would still feel better.”
“Indeed.” His porridge might have been the most delicate roast quail for the close attention he paid it.
I jumped up. A mistake to sit too close. Even so near the fire, I felt the chill. “Would you prefer ale or wine? We’ve a bit of both left.”
“Wine, if you please.” He raised his head at that, but his gaze flitted from woods to sky to muddy earth as if I had no physical substance.
Surely this was D’Natheil’s reaction to my scolding and not Karon’s. Dassine had warned me that the lingering echoes of the temperamental Prince would remain with Karon forever. But I would not apologize. I had been right to keep him focused. We had to keep moving.
On the next morning, Paulo discovered the remnants of a camp just off the road. Kellea confirmed that Gerick had been there. Karon said the fire was more than two days dead. Though we rode harder after that, no one pretended optimism. The greater the gap between us and Gerick, the more difficult for Kellea to follow.
Late in the afternoon of the second day from the bandit cave, Kellea called a halt in order to take her bearings. We had ridden all day on a narrow road that was half overgrown with birch saplings and tangled raspberry bushes. Carved stone distance markers, broken and toppled over well back in the dense undergrowth, testified that the road had once been well traveled and much wider. Indeed, when we emerged from the thinning trees onto a broad slope, carpeted with winter-brown grass, the faded ruts and indentations showed the roadway to have been more than forty paces wide, sweeping up and over the top of a gentle ridge. A snowcapped peak was just visible beyond the hilltop, but my uncertain geography gave no clues as to our destination, and I’d found no inscription remaining on the shattered distance markers.
Kellea dismounted and knelt to examine two paths that split off of the main track. Karon did not wait for her direction, however, but pushed on up the hill, halting only when he reached the top.
“He’s chosen the right way,” said Kellea at last, motioning us after him.
We joined Karon on the hilltop and found a view that was indeed worth a pause-the broad valley I’d seen from the bandit cave, no fire-shot frost plumes hanging over it any longer, only heavy gray clouds that promised snow before morning. The valley was much larger than I had imagined, a sweeping vista of grasslands and woodlands, small lakes and streams. The wide-thrown arms of the mountains were softened by leagues of rolling hillsides clad in winter colors, on that day a hundred shades of gray and blue. The valley’s beauty seemed virginal-unscarred by human activity. But for the contrary evidence of the road, I might have believed we were the first to look on it.
Yet the longer we gazed, the more disturbing the quiet. No bird chirped; no insect buzzed. Nothing at all dripped or trickled, hopped, or scurried. And somewhere just beyond the center of the valley was a line of demarcation, straighter than anything nature could devise. Whatever lay beyond that line was dark and indecipherable in the gray light. Uneasy, I turned to ask the others if they knew the place. Paulo, Kellea, and Bareil were staring at Karon, who gazed unblinking on the valley, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. And then I knew.
By more than twenty years he had outlived his family and his birthplace. Before I could speak, he urged his mount forward, moving slowly down the hill.
As we followed Karon into the valley, we saw remnants of human habitation: stone houses overgrown with brambles and dark windows like hollow black eyes, a lone chimney standing in a bramble thicket, rotting fences, fields gone wild, roadside wells and springs so wickedly fouled that only black-and-green sludge lay within twenty paces on any side. But these sights were benign compared to the view as we passed beyond the barrier we had seen from the ridgetop.
A desolation of frozen mud, no remnant of twig or leaf or stubble saying that anything had ever grown in these fields. A few stunted thistles poking through the crumbled highroad seemed to be the only living things within a half a league of the city. Charred and broken towers stood starkly outlined against the heavy clouds. Bare white walls rose from the center of the wasteland like the bleached bones of some ancient beast. Everything dead. Everything destroyed. And lest one retain some hope that some remnant of life had escaped their wrath, the destroyers had set tall poles to flank the gate towers, and upon each one had strung a hundred heads or more-now reduced to bare skulls.
“Demonfire!” Paulo muttered under his breath.
Karon halted just outside the walls at the point where a faint track branched off from the main road. His gaze remained fixed on the eyeless guardians. “Our destination is a small valley in the foothills beyond the city,” he said softly. “I’m sure of it. But to make use of what we find there, I must go into the city. Take this path outside the walls and wait for me where it meets the main road once again. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”
“Let us ride with you,” I said. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
Bareil spoke at the same time. “I think I should be at your side, my lord.”
A rueful smile glanced across Karon’s face. “This is my home. I’ll see nothing I’ve not imagined a thousand times over. Power awaits me in its contemplation, just as in those things I might prefer to look on. Ours is a perverse gift.” He clucked to his mount, but immediately pulled up again, turning to Kellea. “Come, if you wish. This was your home, too.”
Kellea wrenched her eyes from the grisly welcomers atop the poles. “My home was in Yurevan with my grandmother. Horror holds no power for me.” But her cheeks were flushed, and she would not meet Karon’s gaze.
“Don’t blame yourself that you’re not ready,” he said, “or even that you may never be. I believe it’s taken me a very long time to come back here.” He spurred his horse toward the black gash in the wall that would once have been the wooden gates.