I pressed one hand to my mouth and the other to my belly, trying to quell the dull, swelling ache just below my ribs. So profound a change in so short a time. What had I been playing at to allow this to happen? Who were these vile beings who could so easily and so determinedly corrupt a child?
“Who is this boy?” rumbled Gar’Dena. “We’ve been told nothing of a boy. And who are you, sir, who ventures so boldly into the Preceptors’ council chamber?”
“I’m an old friend,” said Darzid, “an Exile, like your Prince here.”
Damnable man! What I would give for a sword to end his cursed life! Was it possible that he was Dar’Nethi?
“An Exile!” said several of the Preceptors together, wondering.
“Indeed this man is an Exile, who has by a strange accident preserved for us the hope of our royal family,” said Exeget. “But here-before anything else is said-the test. The test will tell all. Once doubt is put to rest, then we can explain the happy circumstance.”
Exeget stood before Gerick and laid his hands on the sides of my son’s face. Gerick neither flinched nor changed expression. After a moment, Exeget took a position behind Karon’s chair and laid his hands on Karon’s broad shoulders. “Tell us, D’Natheil,” said the Preceptor, “who is this child that stands before us? What is his lineage? Do these shoulders bear the responsibility for his life?”
Karon closed his eyes and spoke softly, no tremor in his voice. “This is my son, and with Seri, my beloved wife, I gave him life.”
I pressed my forehead against the grate, gripping the iron bars. Tears welled up in my eyes, only to freeze on my cheeks in the bitter cold.
Gerick’s face did not change, except perhaps to grow harder. He was not surprised by Karon’s words, and he didn’t like them.
Exeget stepped back. Madyalar rose from her seat and swept from the dais, the rainbow stripes on her voluminous robes teasing the eye. She took Gerick’s hands in hers for a moment, examined his face carefully, and then, like a mother calming a fearful child, she stood behind Karon and wrapped her arms about his breast. “Tell us, D’Natheil, who is this child? What is his lineage? Is it this heart that beats in time with his?”
Through the aura of enchantment, Karon spoke again. “He is my son, and with Seri, my beloved wife, I cherished him from the day we first knew him.”
One by one they came, laying their hands on his hands, on his loins, and on his head.
“Did your hands build a dwelling place for him along the path of life?”
“Did your loins give fire to his being?”
“Is it this mind that speaks to his mind and listens for the word father?”
And he answered each of them.
“With my hands did I heal and restore life where it was damaged beforetime, and so in the days of my first life, I built a house of honor for my child.”
“Yes, it is my seed that called him from nothingness into the Light.”
“He is my son.”
“The bond of the spirit is proved,” said Exeget. “And, as you see, the bond of the flesh is also true, though the flesh was not that which our Prince wears on this day. Law and custom mandate that the bonds of flesh and spirit are the true witness of lineage, and who dares gainsay what Vasrin Shaper has provided? My judgment asserts that this child is the next Heir of D’Arnath. How say you all?”
One by one, the Preceptors agreed-only Madyalar hesitating. “I believe we should wait. Let the Prince recover from his ordeals. Place him in isolation for a while. He may yet father children with this flesh-D’Natheil’s flesh. Then there would be no question. Or perhaps-”
“No!” Karon roared, bursting from his seat. “Enough! You cannot make me endure this longer.” Reaching across the table, he thrust his shaking hands into Madyalar’s face. “There is no recovery from death. Ten breaths more and I will be unable to stop screaming. I am dead. I can do nothing for you. Care for my son. Protect him… please. Send for his mother to love and nurture him and teach him the savoring of life. Do not entrust Exeget with his mentoring… nor this Darzid who stands in the guise of an Exile, but is responsible for the extermination of a thousand Exiles.”
The Preceptors recoiled in horror. The old ones gaped; Gar’Dena, Y’Dan, and Madyalar jumped from their seats, their dismay not aimed at the cursed Darzid, but at Karon, who writhed and twisted, wrestling to loose Exeget’s hands that had grasped his shoulders to pull him away from the table. Then, Karon broke free and backed away from Exeget, a knife in his hand. Breathing hard, his skin gray and stretched, he held the unsteady weapon between himself and the Preceptor.
“My lord Prince, calm yourself,” said Exeget. “Your mind has been savaged by Dassine’s enchantments. Let us help you. I know of many things-”
“Stay away from me!” said Karon, brandishing the knife. “When I can no longer hold, you’ll not want to be within striking distance of this weapon.”
“Gerick… Your name was going to be Connor…Connor Martin Gervaise.” Though his gaze remained affixed to Exeget and the other Preceptors, Karon spoke to our son with an urgency, intensity, and tenderness that wrenched the heart. “I wanted to tell you about my friend Connor. I wanted to tell you so many things, but there was no time. That was the worst part of dying… to believe I would never see you. And now beyond all wonder, we are together, but again… there is no time.”
Gerick spat at his feet. “Murderer! I’ve sworn a blood oath to destroy you for what you’ve done.”
Karon shook his head, his lean face sculpted in pain. “So much blood on my hands-holy gods, I don’t deny it-but not that of which you accuse me. If only there was time”- he staggered backward a small step-“I’m so sorry, Gerick. So sorry. Look at me… look deep and search for the truth.” Then he closed his eyes, and with his trembling hands, my beloved plunged Exeget’s knife into his own belly.
“Karon! No!” I screamed, yanking at the iron grate as if to rip it from the mortar.
The chamber erupted in frenzy as Karon slumped to his knees. The giant Gar’Dena rushed forward bellowing and gathered him in his brawny arms. His cry of grief shook the walls of the chamber. “Great Vasrin, alter this path! What have we done? The Heir of D’Arnath is dead!” Madyalar and the two old people screamed for guards and Healers, while Y’Dan slumped into his chair and laid his head on the table, weeping.
Darzid stiffened and unsheathed his sword. Grabbing the wide-eyed Gerick, he backed away from Karon and the Preceptors.
An expressionless Exeget watched the madness and did nothing.
Fate could not be so brutal, so unfair. “Why did you do it?” I sobbed, gripping the iron bars. “I could have helped you. Oh, love, why? Why didn’t you wait for me?”
As if in echo of my words, there came a flutter in my head, a delicate brush of words… wait for me… Then, in a moment of grace, my mind was filled with Karon, without pain, without fear, whole, knowing everything of our life together… Seri, beloved, forgive me… Then he was gone.
The guards had to peel my fingers away from the grate as I hung onto the sweet echo, straining to hear more. But strangely enough, as Paulo and I were taken inside the Preceptors’ house, a different voice whispered in my head. Do not be afraid, it said. Say nothing.
I wasn’t sure about that voice. Certainly it was not Karon’s. I might have named it Dassine’s voice, though Bareil had told me that the old sorcerer was buried in his own garden. And, too, the tenor of it was not quite the same. This sounded more as my own father might have done were he able to speak in the mind-my grim warrior father, who thought nothing of leading a thousand men to their deaths in order to slay a thousand enemies, all for the glory of his king. Once, when I was a child, my favorite pony had been crippled in a fall. After commanding a servant to slay the suffering beast, my father had taken me on his knee and awkwardly dried my tears. “The world goes on, little Seri,” he said. “A soldier never dies. His blood makes the grass green for his children.”