Bareil glanced anxiously in every direction and dropped his voice so that a bird on my shoulder couldn’t have heard him. “I’ve not seen him since I left him with the Prince at the caves, but I am certain he is still in hiding. His ‘death’ has not been publicly reported, but the rumor of it has spread throughout the city and the Vales.”
“Help me find him, Bareil. I must speak with him.”
The Dulcé‘s face crumpled. “Ah, my lady, that would be far too dangerous. He might be hidden anywhere.”
“No, he’ll be somewhere close. Even if Karon ordered him away, I don’t believe he would go. Does he have a house in the city or family, someone trustworthy, somewhere he might be able to remain hidden?”
“His only family is a sister who lives in Lyrrathe Vale. When not at Nentao or at the battlefront, he resides in the palace to be close to the Prince. But, of course” - Bareil scratched his short beard thoughtfully - “in his student days, Master Ven’Dar had rooms in Master Exeget’s old house, the Precept House. That was many years ago, of course, but Exeget took no other students, except for the Prince himself. Master Ven’Dar might have kept the rooms. Few people would know of them. And with so few members of the Preceptorate any more, the chance of discovery would be small. Close to the Prince. Private. Yes, if the Preceptor is to be found anywhere in the city, I would guess he might be there.”
“All right. Stay out of sight and keep Roxanne safe. I’ll meet you back here as close to sunset as I can manage.”
“My lady, please - ”
“I remember the way to the Precept House, and yes, I will be very careful. No one is expecting us so early. We’ll be safely stowed in the palace before anyone even suspects we’re in the city. Though if I can’t find Ven’Dar, perhaps I’ll go looking for Men’Thor and have a talk with him.”
I hadn’t thought a Dulcé could go so pale. His complexion looked like soured milk. “Madam, you must not! To risk anyone seeing you, especially Men’Thor… My lady, you are the key to the Prince’s reason.”
“But that doesn’t seem to have done much good, does it?” I said, loosing far more anger than I should have directed toward the kindly Dulcé. “Men’Thor and Radele will not destroy my family. The Lords of Zhev’Na will not destroy my family. I can’t depend on the Prince’s reason, and I can’t depend on any of these Dar’Nethi who believe that my son is a devil and that I am somehow less worthy of their concern because I do no magic. I have to do something.”
“We should go with you,” said Roxanne, who had been uncharacteristically quiet as we walked through the dappled parkland. “This fellow is right. It’s foolish for you to risk encountering these sorcerers who’ve come near murdering you. But I understand you have to do it. So Bareil and I will stay close and be ready to rescue you or distract them, if need be. My presence could present them a mystery! As Gerick could tell you, I am quite accomplished at intrigues and deceptions.”
Knowing how I would bridle at such insinuations myself, I resisted the temptation to ask her if she was sure she wished to put herself at such risk. She was not a stupid girl. Gerick had trusted her with his life. “All right then. Come along.”
Roxanne jerked her head in satisfaction, and while Bareil spluttered and moaned, we pulled our scarves down low about our faces and merged with the preoccupied traffic in the streets.
CHAPTER 28
The city bristled with gossip about Men’Thor and Ven’Dar and what was to happen that night. Among the other opinions and speculations, tossed through the streets from person to person like a child’s ball, was certainty that the mysterious boy, the Prince’s son, who had not been seen since he was acknowledged before the Preceptorate, was to be disinherited. Perhaps the youth was dead, the rumors speculated, a victim of the same villains who had murdered the Preceptor Jayereth and the Circle. Perhaps he was truly corrupted by the Lords, as rumor had had it four years ago. That must be why he had never been brought to Avonar. No one even knew the boy’s name. The Prince had claimed that the secrecy was for his son’s protection, but now…
Unease pricked at me like thorns in my clothes as we hurried through the crowded streets.
The Precept House of the Dar’Nethi stood behind tall gray walls. Though I had seen it only once before, I could not mistake the formidable house where the child D’Natheil had been tested by the demanding Exeget and found wanting in all but the skills of war. In this same house Karon had finally recovered the full memory of his lost life and terrible death. And in the vast meeting chamber on its lower level, Gerick had been brought from Zhev’Na and acknowledged as Karon’s son and successor before the Preceptorate and Darzid/Ziddari, the Third Lord of Zhev’Na.
The blocky edifice was altogether ordinary in appearance for a house that had seen events of such extraordinary strangeness and significance: three stories of rough blue-gray stonework and many tall glass windows as were common throughout Avonar, but none of the graceful galleries or fountains, wide porches, or romantic, cloistered gardens the Dar’Nethi loved. Perhaps its severity was intended to be a reminder of its more serious purpose, as a meeting place for the Preceptorate and the residence of its head.
We slipped through the stable, a discreet entry at the back of the gardens that Paulo had discovered years ago. Bareil led us quickly across the manicured grounds, over a low, ivy-covered wall, and across a grassy nook to a side door. Our luck held. The door was unlocked, left so quite often, so Bareil said, for Preceptors who needed to take a breath of air during an extended debate.
The Dulcé led us through a tangle of dim passages to the marble-floored foyer, where a broad staircase led downward to the council chamber. We planned to slip around the corner and up the narrower steps that led to the third floor. There, at the back of the house, Bareil had said I would find Ven’Dar’s old rooms. While I sought out the Preceptor, Bareil would keep Roxanne safely out of sight.
Just as we were ready to step from the passage, someone came up the stairs from the council chamber. “… called in every commander for new orders,” said a male voice. “It’s going to be all or nothing, I think. Ce’Aret is about crazy with it. I heard her tell Preceptor Mem’Tara that” - the voice dropped to a whisper as the speaker stepped into the echoing foyer - “he’s gone off his head since his lady died. He can’t grieve for her. He can’t follow the Way.”
“It’s as Men’Thor says,” said a much older man, wheezing slightly. “It’s no good when we get mixed up with mundanes. They’re not like us.”
We held back in the dim passageway. The unseen speakers could be no more than twenty paces from us.
“When the Prince first came back from Zhev’Na, all of us in Terrison could see how he followed the Way. So much hardship… so much pain and grief… but it had made him stronger… kinder… and such power… Just to watch him work a healing filled my heart with peace. It’s what made me come to serve him here, so maybe I could learn how it was done.”
“It ate away at him, though,” said the second man, “the other world… the woman… the boy that was snatched by the Lords and rescued. I’ve heard he keeps traveling across the Bridge to that place. The Bridge wasn’t meant to be crossed. Who knows what harm might come from such doings?”
“But - ”
“Hsst! Someone comes.”
A tall, large-boned woman with a long dark braid strode past not five paces from me, emerging from the very stair that was my goal. “F’Lyr! Kry’Star!”
“Yes, Preceptor?” Two men in light blue robes stepped into view at the top of the Chamber steps.
So the woman was Mem’Tara, the Alchemist Karon had named the newest Preceptor. I could see only her back. She wore a dark green robe of the formal style that the Dar’Nethi Preceptors wore on solemn occasions, draped gracefully about her large frame and belted with a silken cord.