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.
“Quickly now, to sleep,” said the grating voice, and the hellish cacophony of my jangled senses was deadened by the blessed touch of his hand.
In an hour, no more than two, they roused me to begin it all again.
Dassine’s regimen had been nothing compared to that of Exeget. I knew no day or night, no hour or season, no word of comfort or argument, no words at all in that time. I did not eat, only drank the vile mess that kept me living and embraced the darkness when they pulled me from the circle of fire, blind and deaf and numb. I lived only as Karon, in the past, and, of course, it was not long until I understood what horror awaited me beyond my knowing.
Dead. Oh, gods, my dear friends… Martin, Tanager, Julia… I had left them to die because I would not compromise my gift to alter the paths of fate. And my wife and son abandoned. I had abdicated my responsibilities for some Dar’Nethi ideal and left Seri to face the horror all alone. The experience of my own death, the relived torment and despair and the ten years of disembodied darkness were as nothing beside my betrayal of my friends, my wife, and my child. And Dassine had brought me back because he believed I had some holy revelation that could save the world. What kind of coward was I?
The candlelight faded; darkness and silence enshrouded me. Was the restoration of three lost souls-those three pitiable Zhid I had healed after the fight with Seri’s brother at the Gate-worth everything that had happened? I could see no other return from all the pain and sorrow.
Oh, Seri, forgive me. How I understand your anger…
“You cannot hide forever, D’Natheil. Three days it’s been since we completed our work.”
The room was dark, though not as dark as my soul. He spoke softly, as if unsure of the state of my hearing. But I would not wake to Exeget. I burrowed back into emptiness.
The next time it was someone else. Hands rolled me to my back and stuffed pillows under my head. “My lord Prince, you must live. You are so much needed. Here, drink this.” He pressed a cup into my shaking hands and helped me lift it to my lips. Brandy, woody and old, the smoothest I had ever tasted, yet I thought it might burn a hole through my empty stomach. I coughed and gagged and heaved, and my invisible companion helped me to sit up straight. My skin was slick with sweat.
“Holy stars!” It seemed like half a month until I caught a breath.
“It is fine, is it not? My best vintage ever.”
“Bareil?”
“The same, my lord. May I make a light?”
“If it’s necessary.” With the glimmering candle flame came the intrusion of the world and all the burdens I had shed in my days of oblivion. “Oh, gods, Bareil…” I bent forward and dragged at my hair with my fingers, as if enough pain might make reality vanish again.
“I know, my lord. It is difficult. I wish it could have been slower, easier for you.”
“You were there? You were the other hands?”
“Yes, my lord. Master Dassine had given Master Exeget a directive with which to summon me and command my assistance. And when I saw what he was doing with you- completing Master Dassine’s work-I was happy to be of service. I hope it did not contradict your wishes.”
“No.” I pushed shaggy, damp hair from my brow and felt several weeks’ growth of beard bristling on my chin. “Thank you.”
“You must eat, even though you may not feel like it yet. I’ll bring something. I’ve scarcely managed to get anything down you in all these weeks. And, my lord, Master Exeget is desperate to speak with you. Though he asked me to wake you, he waits just outside.”
“Exeget…” What was I to think of him?
“It is astonishing, is it not? I was terrified when I saw you in his power. But my lord, I must tell you that never was Master Dassine so careful in his work. I have watched many of the Dar’Nethi masters work, and none other could have brought you through this as he did.”
“Give me an hour.”
Bareil bowed and left the room. Huddled in the corner of my pallet, I forced myself to consider the state of the world. At what I guessed to be the precise expiration of my hour, the door opened and my old enemy sat himself in the chair in the corner. He began examining his hands, turning them this way and that in the weak light, showing no sign of agitation at my delay. He would sit so all night before confessing his urgency.
“I don’t know whether to thank you or not,” I said, conceding the minor struggle in the hunger for understanding.
His hands came to rest in his lap, one laid calmly upon the other. “I did what was necessary. I don’t expect you to thank me. Upon full consideration, you will most likely decide this is only another crime to add to my account.”