“Of course I had no intent to pry, Your Grace. You are the finest battle leader the Dar’Nethi have ever had. When you remind our warriors of the horrors you have seen, of the noble purpose that demands our sacrifice, they respond to your command with twice the fervor they give to any other commander. But if your private business intrudes… ”
“This is not private business, Men’Thor.” I yanked one leather strap of a canvas pack too hard and it snapped. I threw the broken piece to the ground, cinched the other one, and hefted the worn satchel. “Ven’Dar has a prisoner he wants me to see. A Drudge escaped from Zhev’Na, I believe. If Ven’Dar says it is important, it usually is, and so I’ll go. NTien will set our positions. Your father can hold the portal, and the warriors will follow you. You can send for me if I’m needed. Is that enough?”
“I am only concerned - ”
“For the welfare of Avonar and our people. I appreciate your attention to duty. Good day.”
“Good journey, my lord. I am on my way to the front.” At least Men’Thor was no hypocrite, staying back with his maps and plans while sending others to fight the battles he espoused so fervently. He relished being in the vanguard of this mad venture.
“Take me to Ven’Dar,” I said to the messenger, who stood waiting with Bareil and our horses as Men’Thor hurried away. “The Preceptor had better be right about the importance of this prisoner, or I’ll send Men’Thor to oversee his operations.”
The journey would be long and hot, for we had to use conventional transport, rather than one of the Dar’Nethi portals that could link one place to directly to another across a few steps or many leagues. All true power was saved to create and maintain the portals to the battlegrounds, for the battle itself, and for whatever healing could be done after it. I, the Preceptors, and the commanders had to shift the load between us, husbanding our resources carefully to muster enough power even for those most fundamental uses.
Ven’Dar and his small detachment were situated about a half-day’s ride from the main encampment. His troop’s primary function was to send small, quick-moving teams to harass vulnerable pockets of the Zhid. He considered his secondary mission, liberating the work camps of the Drudges, to be of far more importance. Drudges were not Dar’Nethi, but descendants of people from the mundane world who had been held in generations of servitude in Ce Uroth, the wasteland empire of the Lords.
Ven’Dar also kept up a special watch for Dar’Nethi slaves, sending in rescue parties at the least rumor of them. But we had yet to find any slave who had been allowed to live when we got close. If forced to abandon a position in a hurry, the Zhid impaled their slaves on stakes or set them afire. Death was not pleasant for any Zhid who encountered my sword after I’d come across such a sight.
“The Preceptor is in the blue tent at the center, my lord,” said the messenger, as we approached the perimeter of Ven’Dar’s encampment. It was nearing midday, and my primary interest was not the mysterious prisoner, but getting out of the sun and finding a drink of water that was not scalding like the dregs in my waterskin. Hardening oneself to life in the desert required more than a few months. Four years had passed since my imprisonment in Zhev’Na, and I wasn’t used to it any more.
When I walked into the stuffy dimness of Ven’Dar’s tent, the Preceptor and two sweat-sheened lieutenants were leaning over a small wooden table, poring over maps. A young aide was sorting food packets and waterskins in a wooden chest.
“Ah, Your Grace, welcome,” said Ven’Dar, pulling off a pair of spectacles.
“Sire!” The warriors straightened up, each laying his two fists over his heart before spreading his arms and opening his palms in greeting.
Ven’Dar came around the table and bent his knee, extending his open palms to me. “Ce’na davonet, Giré D’Arnath!” He smiled as I touched his palms and gestured him up. “I’m glad you’ve come. And Bareil, welcome.” The Dulcé had followed me into the tent.
Some men and women bend their knees to their sovereign out of duty, others out of fear, or awe, or custom. Ven’Dar was the only person I knew who expressed joy in his obeisance: joy in my position, in my life, in my friendship, joy in his own position and his own life. And no matter what the circumstances of our meeting, I could never greet his smile save with a smile in return. Ven’Dar was a living example of the Way of the Dar’Nethi, accepting, rejoicing, savoring every moment of his life, and fitting it into the larger pattern of the universe.
“This had better be important,” I said, taking a damp cloth offered by one of his aides and wiping my face and neck. “We hit five thousand of Gensei Senat’s troops at the Dinaje Cliffs this morning. I should be there.”
Ven’Dar ushered his warriors and servants out, pointing Bareil to a water barrel and tin mugs sitting beside the curtain that screened his sleeping quarters. The Preceptor was only of medium height, slight of build, fair-haired, his unfashionable beard just starting to show signs of silver. Some might have called him unimposing, but only until they heard him speak or looked closely into his eyes. Ven’Dar could fill a room with his quiet exuberance, and the lines about his gray-blue eyes had been etched deep by sixty years of laughter. But it was the power of his words that could touch the essence of the universe, drawing a man’s tears or honing a woman’s fury, evoking a holocaust or an infant’s laughter. Even those who discounted the Way admitted that Ven’Dar was a formidable enchanter… and a formidable warrior when he chose to be.
“I think you’ll find this of far more moment than even so dramatic a turn in this pernicious war.” Ven’Dar hated the war, and though he carried out his duties faithfully, it was with far less relish than I. The war and its consequences were the only thing that could dim his smile - and so they did, at his next words. “This young wanderer we found - in his ravings, he speaks of your son.”
“He is with them then. Back in Zhev’Na where he belongs.”
My rage had cooled in the four months since the events at Windham, as lava will cool after it spews and boils its way from the volcano. I could speak of Gerick, even say his name or speculate on his plans and his whereabouts, without tasting blood. But as lava becomes a part of the mountain, my anger had become a part of me: hard, cold, smothering the life of everything it touched.
“Is your prisoner a Drudge?” I said. “Has he actually seen the Destroyer?”
“I don’t know. The poor fellow had been out there beyond Calle Rein near the Castyx Rocks for a day or two without food or water. My Healers have taken care of him and sent him deep to sleep it off. They should be able to wake him by tonight. He’ll be quite all right; I perhaps… exaggerated… his condition in my message. Slightly. But when he was first brought in, despite his weakness, he was extraordinarily agitated. He was begging to be taken… to your wife, my lord.”
“To my wife? I thought you said - ”
“He was near frantic. I think he was afraid he was going to die before he could speak to her. His exact words were, ‘I got to speak to the Lady Seri about the young master.’”
“Take me to him.”
“I had him brought to my quarters, but he’s not yet - ”
“Now!” Only one person I knew would say those words.
They had laid him on Ven’Dar’s own pallet. The sun had burned his skin to a deep red bronze. Thanks to the Healers, his face and arms were merely blotched and peeling. I dismissed Ven’Dar’s Dulcé Guide, Bastel, who was dripping water into Paulo’s mouth, and took over the duty myself.
“Go on about your business,” I said. “I’ll watch him.”
“Then I’m right,” said Ven’Dar, standing between the parted curtains as I sat cross-legged beside the pallet. “He is the boy of the stories, the boy who went with you to the Gate and survived Zhev’Na.”