“Winter is but another expression of life. No less worthy than its more embracing fellows. My winter aspect is perhaps a bit more dangerous than the others. Would that you had chosen it on a different day.”
“Why more dangerous?”
“It is the quietest, the deepest buried, the most private. We do not always like what we see when we explore our most hidden places or what we hear when the world falls silent.”
“I don’t want philosophy today. I want my answers.”
Roxanne stood with her arms crossed, tapping her foot. “Sometimes it takes a little while.”
“Have you not found your place here in the Bounded?” The voice of the Source stayed pleasant and even. “If you would but wait a little longer… finish the work you’ve begun. Your people need you. Your life is here. Stay in the Bounded and be at peace.”
“The firestorms are hardly peaceful. They almost killed me.”
“But you’ve made an accommodation. You protect your people and renew yourself. You are not the same person you were when you walked into your dream. It is no matter what the origin of the storms.”
“No more delays,” I said. “I accepted your word and made the best of my waiting, but I must finish the journey that brought me here.”
“As you wish, my king. Ask as you will.”
“I want to know the identity of the person who stabbed my mother and betrayed my father’s secrets.”
“Have you not guessed it, my lord?” Her voice was quiet, gentle, and relentless in its truth. “Look into your own most hidden places. Open your eyes. Can you not see?”
“No.” But there were no surprises for me in the Bounded, and even as I said the word, the bitter chill of the winter garden settled over my spirit.
“There, you see?” interrupted Roxanne, who had paid no mind to the Source. “You can ask for anything you want - a bolt of red silk or an ivory hairbrush or a cask of sparkling wine - and you’ll find it in the Blue Tower storerooms when you go back. Isn’t it odd the way the ring catches the light as it spins?”
And even as the back wall of the cave dissolved into blackness and revealed the spinning brass ring, I remembered despair.
The ring was taller than I, and as it whirled about its axis, numbing my cheeks with the frigid air, it snatched the light of the torches and the sparkling reflections of ice and silver and jet, and it wove them into an orb of gray light. An oculus… just as I had seen them and used them in the fortress of Zhev’Na… just like the one spinning in the Lords’ temple on the day I traded my eyes and my soul for power and immortality.
Roxanne stood at my shoulder. I needed to warn her. But I couldn’t take my eyes from the oculus, and the hunger grew in me like the storm clouds that raced to devour the skies of the Bounded. It was danger unimaginable for me to stay so near an implement of power… an implement of temptation. But I could not… would not… run from the truth, and I would not believe it until the words were spoken.
“Tell me the name of the betrayer and assassin,” I said. Even then I knew the two were one and the same.
“But, my - ”
“Tell me!” I roared the command, trying to drown out the thunder of my desire, and the wailing of my fear, and the hollow empty silence within me.
“Oh, my gracious king… it was you.”
CHAPTER 20
Karon
It was in the fourth month of the war in the Wastes that I received news of a half-dead lunatic found wandering at the fringes of the desert. He was not Dar’Nethi, the panting messenger reported as he drained a waterskin and flattened himself in the shadows of his horse to find a moment’s relief from the voracious sun. Nor was he Zhid.
Anyone found wandering alone in the Wastes was assuredly a lunatic, but if he was not Dar’Nethi, then he was not one of our own warriors who had survived a raid only to get himself lost in the desert. That meant he was from Zhev’Na, and therefore suspect, but possibly a valuable source of information.
Ven’Dar, the Preceptor who held the sector where the prisoner had been taken, sent word that the man was severely dehydrated, so it might be as much as two days until he should be moved. But Ven’Dar believed - strongly believed - I would wish to question the prisoner myself. I couldn’t imagine why, but I would accept Ven’Dar’s judgment. If I could be said to trust anyone in the world besides the Dulcé Bareil, it would be the Word Winder Ven’Dar.
I told the messenger to take his rest, and that he, Bareil, and I would leave for Ven’Dar’s encampment at dawn the next day, once I had set in motion the day’s battle plan.
The war was going nowhere, unless the matter of hastening our own destruction could be viewed as a positive accomplishment. On more than a few cold desert dawns, as I washed the metallic taste of too much sand and too little sleep from my mouth with a swallow of lukewarm ale, that particular accomplishment seemed eminently desirable.
But then, of course, would come the midnights when I would make my rounds of the day’s wounded, the destroyed youths restrained with leather straps and strong enchantments lest they chew their own hands away, the young women who stared silently into unending emptiness or tore at their skin, screaming to rid themselves of unseen terrors, the men writhing in pain from savaged bodies or raving from the relentless barrage of sun and desert. All of them would stretch their arms toward me, beseeching me for help when they should have been embracing husbands or mothers or children, or using their hands to build a life of beauty. On those nights I would swear again that no price was too high to rid the universe of the Lords of Zhev’Na. Perhaps it was because I had already paid the price that I could swear so easily and with such dreadful consequences.
The red half-disk that sat on the horizon had already broiled away the night chill when I called my commanders together the next morning. I told them I would open up the portal needed for the day’s attack on a Zhid war camp, but would then leave the portal in the care of the Preceptor Ustele while I went to consult with Ven’Dar. I designated N’Tien, my most able strategist, to monitor the progress of the day’s plan and shift our forces as he thought best. Old Ustele was powerful in the wielding of enchantment, but he had no talent for war, particularly for one who was so enamored of it.
Within the hour the battle was joined: the portal that allowed my warriors to bypass unending leagues of trackless desert was open, and I had saluted the valiant men and women who poured through it bearing swords, lances, bows, and sorcery to engage our soulless enemies. The encampment fell quiet once they were gone. The previous battle’s wounded had all been sent back to Avonar, and the dead buried or burned according to each one’s family custom.
As I expected, Men’Thor showed up at my tent, swathed in his usual mantle of righteous concern, just as I was ready to leave. “My lord, do I understand you are to be absent from the day’s battle?”
“If you’re here asking me about it, then I suppose you do.” I pulled on my gauntlets.
“May I inquire what draws you away? The Geographers have supported our assumption that the Dinaje Cliffs are an essential base for our next stage. The Zhid are entrenched with at least four levels of battle wards. Our own troops are in good spirits and resolute. Today’s foray is critical to our plans.” A properly concise analysis from the Effector.
Men’Thor was regarded highly for his talent in juggling arcane data and using it to form a plan of action. He could find a way to accomplish anything you set him to - especially if he agreed with it.
“Every day is critical to our plans, Men’Thor. When one has no alternatives, one has to make the best of whatever remains. And you may certainly inquire anything you like. I just won’t always answer.”
Something about Men’Thor always set my back up. He was such an honorable man. “So very worthy,” people said. “Destined for greatness.” I couldn’t see this great destiny, but I also could see nothing to justify sending him away as I might prefer.