Your Grace,
It is with great distress that I must inform you of the events that have transpired since your last visit to Nentao. Preceptor Ven’Dar arrived shortly after your departure. He attempted to interview the prisoner, despite my insistence that he show me some token of your approval. Only when I forcibly prevented his violation of your orders did he relent and leave the premises. I assumed he had returned to his duties.
But on the next morning, I came upon two of my father’s guards I had set to ward your lady’s bedchamber. They were grievously wounded, sire, one dead already. But the second man claimed that Preceptor Ven’Dar himself had done this terrible deed, boasting that this man and his fellow were but the first two “Dar’Nethi Watchers” to be slain that night. I assumed this accusation to be some confusion of the man’s last agony. Yet when I heard of the death of the Vale Watch that preceded the attack on Seraph, it gave me pause.
Regretfully, I must report that your wife’s condition has taken a serious decline since that day. She grows weaker by the hour, and the Healers have despaired. I urge you to come quickly, my lord.
Your obedient servant,
Radele yn Men’Thor yn Ustele
Five days! I rode out without changing my blood-soaked garments, without cleaning the death from my hands. I recklessly conjured an early portal to Avonar, and by the time the night was spent, I was galloping up the winding road to Nentao, dread sitting in my belly like lead. When I smelled the telltale of charred timber on the dawn wind, I could not contain my fear. Bellowing like a speared boar, I spurred my horse unmercifully until I reached the smoldering ruin.
“Where is she?” I leapt from the saddle and charged through the billowing smoke toward the blackened stonework, nearly throttling the first person who chanced within my reach. “Tell me she’s dead and you’ll wish you were likewise.”
The man in the red shirt didn’t answer, only choked and gasped and fought, dragging me to the ground with his struggle.
“She isn’t here,” said the calm voice behind me, “and killing my servants won’t get her back… my lord.” Men’Thor peered down his straight nose and bowed slightly. What a portrait I presented: groveling in the dirt with a common soldier, the filth of battle dried on my clothes. “Radele says Ven’Dar has abducted both your wife and the Destroyer’s minion. And it appears as if the Preceptor is responsible for two murders a few days ago. The situation is unfathomable. The man must have gone mad.”
“Seri and Paulo abducted? By Ven’Dar?” I shoved the gasping soldier away and scrambled to my feet, fighting for composure, for clarity. “Why the devil would he do such a thing? Where did he take them?”
“Having just arrived myself, my lord, I’ve no answers for you. No sooner did I walk into the house than the man set the place alight over our heads. One of my men saw the three of them ride deeper into the Vale, but we’ve searched and found no sign of them. Ven’Dar’s surely made a portal to transport them elsewhere. They could be anywhere by now.”
Calm yourself, fool. Breathe. Think. I could not help Seri if I could not think. Heat pulsed from the rubble. I ducked under a smoldering beam and wandered through the broken walls, waving a hand at the destruction. “You’re saying Ven’Dar did this, too?”
Men’Thor folded his arms as we moved through the ruin, scuffing the ash with the toe of his knee-high boot. “The Preceptor cast as he escaped. We’re fortunate no one else lies dead. Happily Radele had dismissed the servants. The whole thing reeks of madness… of the Lords.”
Blackened piers and beams stood at rakish angles, a macabre pattern against the morning. Wind sighed across the hilltop, swirling smoke and ash in our eyes and fanning the embers. This was lunacy. I could certainly comprehend that Ven’Dar had decided he could no longer support me. But beyond the simple matter of desertion, nothing of this story held together. Two guards murdered by a man who so treasured the Way? By Ven’Dar, who understood and grieved for what I had become? Persuasion was Ven’Dar’s favored weapon, not a knife, not fire and destruction. He wielded power backed by virtue and wisdom, not hostages or blackmail.
And a mystery of less mortal consequence, yet still profound: Nentao had once belonged to Exeget, Ven’Dar’s mentor. This house and garden had held everything that remained of a brilliant, honorable, difficult man that only Ven’Dar had truly loved. What circumstance could cause him to destroy a place he so treasured? If it was the Preceptor…
I whirled on Men’Thor and gripped his arm. “Are you certain it was Ven’Dar? Did you read him?”
“These events transpired but moments after my arrival, lord.” A man of infinite patience was Men’Thor. “If you remember, I have been fighting Zhid the past five days. Besides… I would never take it on myself to read a Preceptor.” Men’Thor’s voice did not falter, though my fingers ground his flesh against his bones.
“You took it on yourself to come here unasked.”
“On the contrary, sire. You did not respond to my son’s urgent message and so, very properly, he summoned me. Radele indicated that your wife was ill beyond the continuing sad state of her mind, a disease of enchantment the Healers did not recognize. My son was concerned for her life.”
“Not enough, it seems.”
Men’Thor’s jaw tightened, bulging his cheeks; the sinews of his arm stiffened like taut rope under my fingers. Yet even now his voice remained even. “Speak as you will to me, sire, but I’ll not have my son’s abilities or loyalties questioned, even by you. Neither man, nor Zhid, nor cowardly tool of the Lords of Zhev’Na has ever prevailed against my son in combat. He has defended your kingdom since he could hold a weapon, as have my father and I. Tell me the same of your son, Your Grace.”
His words laid down a gauntlet that I could not pick up. I released his arm.
“Yes, Men’Thor. Radele is very accomplished. And a man of honor, as is his father.” That’s why I had chosen the noble bastard to watch Gerick and to guard Seri. “Where is the man who witnessed Ven’Dar’s escape?”
Men’Thor called out to one of his guardsmen that the Prince wished to see H’Kale as soon as possible. It was Radele, his mouth set in an uncharacteristically grim line, who held a youngish man firmly by the sleeve and dragged him Stumbling through the ruins a few moments later. “Here’s the fool who let them get away,” snapped Radele.
The fellow fell to his knees, stammering. “My lord, I’ve never seen the like. The spider… I’ve a horror of them… caught me up… By Vasrin Creator, I saw it as the size of a dog, and so real… I felt the pincers… felt the web sticky… ”
“Just tell me where they went - the Preceptor and the others.”
“Into the Vale, my lord. I’ll swear it. Down the track where I was caught, back behind the stable, and then up farther into the hills. They didn’t circle back as… some others say. On my mother’s bones, I’ll swear it. First the youth and the Lady, and then the Preceptor close behind just after he set the fire.”
Radele sneered at the blubbering young guardsman, gripping his hair and jerking his head back, allowing us to see the slimy evidence of terror dribbling from his nose and mouth and smeared across his cheeks. “You’re either blind or traitor, H’Kale. There’s nothing in the Vale within a day’s ride. We sent - ”
“Did you search the tower, Radele?”
“My lord?”
“Ven’Dar’s tower in the Vale. Did you examine it?”
“We searched every house and rock and glade within ten leagues of this house. We saw no tower.”
“Bring my horse,” I bellowed, kicking the young guardsman to his feet and sending him stumbling through the blackened ruin, before confronting Men’Thor and his son again. Blind, self-important fools. “Are you a complete imbecile, Radele? Every Word Winder has a retreat. He’s just cast a winding to hide it.”