“You can lay him down now,” I said. “I’ll tend him.”
D’Natheil shook his head. For another quarter of an hour he held the sick man. Only when the moaning and the racking shudders had stopped completely and Tennice slept did he untangle himself and slip the older man’s body onto the sheets.
“That was well done,” I said, noting several bloody scratches on his arm. “Let me take care—”
“Call me if he is in need again.” D’Natheil hurried out of the room.
Though I chafed in frustration at D’Natheil’s reticence, I hesitated to push him too much. It had been easy to patronize him when he was only a lost youth with an annoying temper. But now I had begun to think of him as a prince, and, though rank held no awe for me, his position as the last scion of a magical race from another world could not but separate him from the ordinary. He had a great deal to think about. As did I.
That Dassine meant for me to aid D’Natheil in his mysterious task seemed certain. Yet I was not sure I was willing. If Karon’s dying and its mortal consequences had presented the Dar’Nethi with a chance to win their war, then I had already given all one woman could be expected to give. Perhaps it was time to get on with my own life and leave this brute of a prince to deal with his. Besides, he seemed uninterested in my help.
Baglos refused to enlighten me on any matter regarding the Prince’s mind, claiming that a Dulcé Guide’s bond with a Dar’Nethi precluded it. The link between them was of such an intimate nature that it demanded inordinate trust, he said. When a Dulcé participated in the madris, the rite of bonding, he permitted his knowledge, his actions, his very perception of the world to be shaped by his madrisson’s command. And whenever the Dar’Nethi partner invoked his power to access his madrisse’s store of information, he, in essence, left his own mind open and vulnerable to the Dulcé‘s insatiable craving for information. Thus, when the madris was performed, the Dar’Nethi madrisson swore never to misuse his power of command, while the Dulcé madrisse vowed never to betray his master’s privacy. Because D’Natheil had not commanded Baglos to tell me anything of their discussions, the Dulcé could not and would not do so.
All right. I could understand such an arrangement, but the subject of the future must be broached, whether it suited His Grace or not. On the evening of the fifth day since the fire, I decided the time had come. Baglos was watching Tennice while D’Natheil and I ate the simple supper the Dulcé had prepared. Perhaps if I spoke before the Prince finished eating, he wouldn’t bolt.
I set down my cup. “Do you believe the things this Dassine told us?” I began.
D’Natheil pushed a bit of turnip about his bowl with a chunk of bread. “I know very few things, but that I can say. Dassine did not lie.”
“Have you decided what to do?”
“I must try to accomplish what’s needed.”
“Do you understand what that is?”
“I’ve had no magical insights.” His curt response seemed nothing more than the rudeness I had come to expect. Yet, as I searched for some reason to keep on caring about him, I noted how tight his skin was stretched and how long and thin were new lines about his eyes. The shifting candlelight made him look deathly tired.
“Have you been sleeping?”
“Some.” This declaration was in no way convincing.
“What prevents you?”
“I watch.” He tossed the half-eaten bread into his unfinished soup and shoved the bowl away.
“But we’ve all taken our turns watching. There’s been no sign of anyone. Why—”
“The Seeking comes almost every night. Your friend’s suffering draws it. I can… divert it… if I’m awake. They know we live, but they don’t know where we are. It must stay that way.”
“The Seeking…” I had taken my turns walking the garden and the front courtyard. How could I have missed the insidious dread, the sensory horrors? But then I recalled D’Natheil staring into the fire back in Jonah’s cottage, listening to things the rest of us could not hear. Perhaps the essence of the Zhid Seeking was not the alteration of light or the wafting stench. “You should have said something. We can share that watching as well as the other.”
“You and the Dulcé care for your friend.”
“We can do both. You don’t have to bear these burdens alone.”
He shrugged.
“All the more reason we must decide what to do next,” I said. “If the Zhid are so close, we need to be away from here as soon as we can move Tennice.”
“But I don’t even know where to begin.” He stood up abruptly, knocking over his chair. I expected him to storm out of the kitchen, but instead he began to circle the table, words pushing and crowding themselves past his reserve like a sudden cloudburst on a quiet afternoon. “A thousand times I’ve gone over it. This Bridge—I have no concept of its nature or form, no clue as to its location. No one knows anything of the Breach it spans, save that its horrors drive people to madness and ‘unbalance the universe”—whatever that means. Baglos tells me that the Heir of D’Arnath walks upon the Bridge and performs some enchantment to prevent its corruption by the forces of the Breach. Clearly I am expected to do this “walking,” but no one can tell me of the enchantment I must work, and my own people doubt that I am capable. Oh, yes, and these Zhid likely want me dead. The Dar’Nethi assume that my death upon the Bridge will destroy it.“
Astonished at this outburst, I found myself searching for something to answer him. “The Gate. Start there.”
He dropped into his chair again, leaned his forehead on the heel of one hand, and stared at the table. “The Dulcé says it is a wall of fire hidden in a chamber that only I am able to unlock… assuming I am who they claim. One passes through the wall of fire in one world, and after the perilous crossing of this Bridge which he cannot describe, one emerges in the other world—”
“—from the other Gate. They call the one in this world the Exiles’ Gate.”
“Evidently, that’s the usual way. But he says the destination can be changed before or during the crossing, and that’s likely why the Dulcé and I and the Zhid who followed us came out at different locations.” This colorless recitation of facts could not obscure his doubts.
“Yes, Baglos says he was ‘blown” from the Gate by what he calls the ’fracturing‘—displaced abruptly from it and you by some enchantment. But if you are to perform some deed at the Bridge, then those who sent you would want to make sure you could find it.“ I spoke faster as I bent my mind to the mystery. ”What if the destination was changed to protect you from the Zhid who had broken into the chamber? Perhaps only Baglos and the Zhid were removed from the Exiles’ Gate, not you. So if you go to the place where you first set foot in this world—“
“But I remember nothing of it. You heard the old woman.” Louder. Harder. His control was slipping again. But he wasn’t going to learn anything if he wallowed in doubt.
“Think about it. Work at it. What was the terrain? The landforms? Were there towns or villages nearby?”
His lips formed a stubborn line as he shook his head. “I ran. Days and nights without stopping, as if I had been running forever.”
“And so it appeared when you came to me. You were starving, exhausted, and sick. Baglos says he had been hunting for you for fourteen days when I found him. If you came straight to me from the Gate, then the Gate must lie ten days—ten days running—from Dunfarrie.”
“You’re guessing.” His fingers traced the grain lines in the oak table with such intensity that I would not have been surprised to see smoking patterns etched into the wood. He had dropped these few bits of himself in my hands, but clearly he had no confidence that I could make sense of them.
Yet I was not discouraged—not with the most intriguing mystery of my life unfolding in front of me. I jumped up from my chair and began my own pacing. “Another conclusion we can make. It was cold. Baglos says he felt the ”icy breath“ of the Zhid at the crossing. Celine said that your earliest memories were confusion—and bitter cold.”