“This is what happens to them as nurture sorcerers,” said the captain of the soldiers. “This is the evil they bring into the world. If you had given him up, you and the child and the old man would live.” Then he cut the little girl’s throat.
“A curse on them all,” the young man sobbed. “May they all burn.”
“Oh, they will. Never fear,” said the soldier. “You have the easier part.” And he stabbed the young man in the belly and threw him onto the rocks.
I climbed out of the rift onto the hillside. The smoke was terrible, choking, making my eyes burn and water. When I stumbled on something softer than a rock, I didn’t know what it was until I fell on top of it, and came face to face with Allard, the head groom. Only it wasn’t hardly Allard anymore since his nose and ears had been cut off, and he was dead. I jumped up and ran before I could get sick, and I came to the top of a hill where I could see all around.
Comigor was burning-the roof, the stables, the barracks, the fields-for as far as I could see it was burning. People were screaming. The soldiers cut down anyone who tried to run away. A few of the castle guard were fighting to clear a way through the main gate for a carriage, but they fell one by one. When the soldiers dragged Mama and Nellia out of the carriage, others were already sticking heads on poles.
“The devil’s dam-the witch! Where’s fire enough for her?”
I always woke up sweating and coughing about the time Mama started to scream. I told myself that these were only dreams, not things that had really happened. But they left me feeling sick and sad, as if I’d really seen them.
By the afternoon of the second day, Captain Darzid was tearing away rubble with his bare hands. I stayed out of his way. He said we would have to leave that night if he didn’t find what he was looking for. There were other ways to get where we were going, but a lot farther and more complicated.
“I’m going to get a drink from that fountain,” I said. The water in Captain Darzid’s flasks tasted like old boots.
“As you wish,” he growled, pulling more stones away from a buried hearthstone and cursing the avalanche of rubble that followed. I left quickly, before he could tell me to help him move the piles of stone that had undone his entire day’s work.
We were down to eating nothing but jack. Being so dry and salty, jack always made me thirsty, and we had used up all the wine in Darzid’s pack. I hadn’t told Darzid about my own supplies, because I planned to use them when I ran away from him. I had almost run away the previous night, but I hadn’t seen any towns or villages close by as we traveled. Besides, I didn’t relish picking my way through the ruin or the mud fields in the dark. I would have taken his horse, but the captain’s horse wasn’t nice at all. He was like Captain Darzid, bad-tempered underneath all his politeness.
The little stone girl was still smiling to herself in the corner of the courtyard, pouring water from her bottomless pitcher. I helped myself to some of the water and sat down on the rim of the basin, not at all interested in going back to help Darzid. The water was cool, not freezing like you might expect in the winter, and sweet, the best thing I had tasted in a long time. It seemed to clear my head a bit, too. For the first time since leaving Comigor, I had two clear thoughts together. The first thought was that this whole business of searching a ruin for the route to a friend’s house made no sense at all. And the second was that those very instructions were staring me in the face from the bottom of the basin.
“Captain!” I called. “I think I’ve found it.”
He was beside me before I could snap my fingers. “Where? Show me, boy.”
“There,” I said, pointing to the words carved in the bottom of the marble basin under the clear water.
Darzid looked very strange for a moment, then a smile spread slowly out from under his black beard. “Of course… I never thought of that. Tell me, young Lord, how do you read it? My eyesight is certainly not of the same quality as yours… no, not at all… in this dim light.” He grabbed a charred stick and drew on the white paving stones everything that I read from the bottom of the pool. I didn’t know the language, but the captain nodded his head as if he did.
“Now we can ride,” he said. “If this storm will hold off so we can see the moon, then by morning we’ll be safe in Zhev’Na.”
I was happy to leave. “What was the name of that city?” I asked, as we rode toward the mountain. “Who lived there, and why were they all killed and left like that?”
“It was called Avonar,” said the captain. “You’ll hear that name again. It was-and is-the home of your enemies, people of no vision, people of no understanding of the dimensions and possibilities of the universe. You’ll learn more of it when we’re safe. For now, you’ve had a tiring day. Feel free to sleep as we journey.”
And, of course, I did. I dreamed those terrible dreams over and over again, and when I next woke up, I was in a very different place.
CHAPTER 19
Seri
Avonar. No poet has words to describe the view from our window in the Guesthouse of the Three Harpers. The Dar’Nethi called it the City of Light, though no such simple name could capture its glory. Stars… everywhere stars embedded in the night’s dark canvas, so brilliant that when you closed your eyes, the image was etched upon your inner vision. Their number was so profuse that the trees of two worlds could not produce so many leaves. And they were not confined to the heavens. The pale towers of Avonar soared into the heights like long, slender hands sent to reap the sparkling harvest and shower it upon the landscape below, not only in refined and solemn white, but in palest yellows and blues.
But even such a glorious vision as the royal city could not liven my spirit. Neither could the wonder that should accompany any venture into a new world, nor the simple relief at our safe passage through the Breach. I paced the little room, waiting for Karon and news of our son.
Bareil brought food: delicately fried pastries wrapped about a savory filling and dusted with cheese, golden fruits the size of apples with pink flesh that tasted like a blending of peaches and tart cherries, and a brass pot of something fruity and pungent that he called saffria. The others unstacked the small plates and poured the hot cider into mugs of painted pottery, gathering around a low table by the fire to share the meal.
I could muster no appetite. “Why would they bring him to Avonar?” I said. “And how was Darzid able to cross the Bridge without the Heir to open the way, to guide him, protect him…?”
Kellea waved her mug and amplified my questions. “And how could there be a Gate in the ruined Avonar? I thought there was only a single Gate to the Bridge in Gondai, and a single Gate in our world.”
“As to the Gate,” said Bareil, setting down his cup and wiping his mouth with his fingertips, “indeed only one exists in the world of Gondai with its single reflection in your world. But each Gate would have been built with multiple points of entry. Here in Gondai, all entries have been lost to the Zhid except the one in the palace in Avonar. We could not know where the entries in your world were set, of course, or how many might still exist. As for your other questions, I wish I could say. Perhaps when the Zhid followed D’Natheil to your world this past summer, the secret of the Bridge crossing was compromised. Master Dassine put extra wards at the two Gate chambers, but this entry we traveled had not been used for hundreds of years. And for the man to venture the Bridge without the Heir… I cannot…” Bareil’s expression suddenly fell blank and featureless. “Well, your guesses are more likely to be correct than those of a Dulcé unbidden by his madrisson.”
We filled the next two hours with trivialities. Kellea and Paulo made an inventory of our supplies, only what Bareil had carried in the small pack on his back and the rest of us had in our pockets. The Dulcé cleared away the meal, setting the remaining food aside for Karon, and then gave us a monologue on the major points of interest in the view from our window. Kellea asked about the bronze mask above the door, and Bareil told us the story of Vasrin of the Two Faces, who had existed when the universe was nothingness. But eventually these occupations flagged, and we fell into anxious silence. Heavy clouds rolled in from the mountains, obscuring the stars.