She slapped her palm on the stopper of the blue flask, cramming it tight, then stuffed flask and cup back into a worn gray rucksack.
“Three days ago, he came back,” she continued. “After ten dreary days with his mostly dead body, and I thought I was going to be here forever and not even know quite where. I wake up in the morning to find him walking around like he’d just dozed off for an hour. He ate half the food we had left and told me about what had happened with Paulo and you and the list enchantment. He said we’d just have to wait to see what came about next. But it wasn’t two hours until he turned fifty colors of white, and I thought we were dead, because it was just the way he’d look when the firestorms came. Those storms were the most terrifying things, as if the world were shattering to bits. The poor Singlars would get caught in them, and their towers disintegrate right before your eyes, and one time I came near falling into one of the rifts and a Singlar pulled me out. It was the worst fright I’ve ever had. With Gerick looking so pale and awful, I expected this place to split open and fall apart any moment, but he said it wouldn’t happen here, and maybe it wouldn’t happen back in the Bounded either, if he could just turn off his head for a while. He felt so responsible. He said the storms were his fault, though I’ll never believe that. He almost died trying to stop them. Do you think I’ll ever get used to this, Lady Seriana? Bodies lying around with no minds in them, bodies walking around with two - ”
She paused in her breathless chatter, staring at the doorway behind me. I whirled about, and I couldn’t tell whether the iron-visaged figure who stood there was Karon or D’Natheil.
“Karon!” I said, choosing that it be so.
Gently, but firmly he took my arm and raised me up, moving me to the corner of the little room. When he returned to Gerick and looked down at him, the world paused in its spinning path.
Only the princess refused to heed the dread of that moment. Glancing at me briefly, she took up her story once again, as if she’d never been interrupted. “… so, before I quite understood what he meant, he took himself off again. I don’t know exactly where.”
She wrinkled her straight nose and pursed her lips while shifting her unabashed stare to Karon. “And Gerick - my friend, Gerick - said to tell his father - I presume that’s you - that he’d be waiting for you to fulfill your agreement. He didn’t explain that part or anything about the enemies he was hiding from, and I find it quite annoying, as I’ve had all this time to think, and he didn’t explain the most important part. ‘Too complicated,’ he’d say, which have to be the most exasperating words that can be spoken, and despite the fact that I’m almost two years older, and I helped him sort out all manner of things while he was being the king of the Bounded. He just said that if anyone could take care of the firestorms so the Singlars wouldn’t suffer so from them, it was his father. The only thing he was afraid of was that Paulo wouldn’t find you.”
“It took a number of people to find me,” said Karon, softly. “I thank you for your care for him, young lady. Now you’d best move closer to Seri. It will be safer. Or you might want to step outside.”
“But you see, just as I’ve been telling the Lady, you don’t have to pretend there’s no sorcery involved here. I’m not afraid… ” Roxanne’s words limped into the void very quickly. She stood and backed away from Gerick and Karon, but only as far as my side. Her chin was still firm and high. Paulo, who had said nothing since Karon’s arrival, stood behind us in the doorway.
Karon’s hand was steady as he drew his silver dagger from its sheath. I wanted to stay his hand until I was sure of him, but terror robbed me of speech.
“Oh, demons, Gerick - ” Roxanne gasped and lunged forward as Karon raised his glittering knife.
I grabbed her and drew her close, holding her tight and allowing her cry to loosen my own tongue. With all the hope I could muster, I said softly, “There are no demons here, Roxanne. No need to be afraid. This is Gerick’s father, who cherished our son before he was even born, who led him out of the darkness once and will do so again. He’s come here only to help him.”
At the same moment, Karon raised his other hand, closed his eyes, and with a passion that was all of his life, spoke words that would forever summon visions of a rainy summer afternoon at Windham, a frost-rimed Vallorean bandit cave, and a towering wall of white fire, blazing joyfully in a mountain fortress. “Life, hold. Stay your hand. Halt your foot ere it lays another step along the Way. Grace your son once more with your voice that whispers in the deeps, with your spirit that sings in the wind, with the fire that blazes in your wondrous gifts of joy and sorrow. Fill my soul with light, and let the darkness make no stand in this place.”
“It’s all right. It’s all right,” I whispered to the terrified girl, as Karon’s knife left its bloody track across Gerick’s limp forearm and his own scarred left arm. And while the golden flames danced on the ancient walls, the blaze of Karon’s enchantment embraced us all.
CHAPTER 27
We had basked in the warmth of Karon’s magic no more than half an hour when Paulo slipped out of the ruin into the night. I thought nothing of it. There was too much else to consider, too much wondering at what was happening between the two who were bound together by a narrow strip of bloodstained linen. Such a monumental task as exploring the link that connected Gerick to the world he had created from the Breach… who knew if such a thing was even possible? And his connection to the Lords… I was all too aware that this blessed reprieve was only temporary. Judgment would come with Karon’s withdrawal. I didn’t want to hurry it, even if I could. Karon’s work with Gerick after our return from Zhev’Na had taken as long as four or five hours each time, and I couldn’t imagine this venture could take less.
So after Paulo’s abrupt departure, I watched and continued whispering an explanation of Dar’Nethi healing to Roxanne.
But suddenly - far too soon - Karon’s hand fumbled for his knife, and with a swift motion, he sliced through the strip of linen that bound his arm to Gerick’s. He fell back on his heels, sweat beaded on his brow and soaking the tendrils of light hair dangling about his face, though our dying fire had invited the nighttime chill into our shelter. “Get out of here, Seri,” he said harshly. “Take the girl and hide. Empty your minds. Someone will come for you.”
Gerick was stirring, and I hesitated.
Karon waved his knife toward the door. “Go now! For everything - hurry!”
I jumped to my feet just as Paulo burst into the shelter. “Someone’s coming. Horses beyond the ridge to the north.”
Karon had hunched his shoulders and closed his eyes, grimacing and cradling his bleeding left arm in his right. His incision did not close if the enchantment was interrupted. “Hurry!” he gasped.
“We’ll go south,” I said, kicking dirt over the fire. Then I grabbed Roxanne’s arm and pulled her out into the night. Halting abruptly in the deepest shadows next to the broken walls, I gave my eyes time to adjust to the dark, sacrificing the quick start for speedier going.
“What’s happening?” demanded the princess, wresting her arm free. “What did he mean? What’s he going to do?”