The cave walls were milky white and yellow, lumps and rills of weeping stone, pockmarked by holes and nooks and niches. Steam hung over the small pool, an irregularly shaped basin no more than twenty paces around. The draft from deep in the caves twined the mists among stalagmites as thick as my wrist.
Bareil awaited me beside the pool, his dark eyes filled with kindness and concern that had never flagged, though I had all but ignored him for three years. As D’Natheil had slowly encroached on my spirit and behavior, I had not bared my soul to Bareil as I had to Ven’Dar. Nor had I ever given the Dulcé permission to speak to the Preceptor on any personal matter. I could not abide the thought of the two discussing my “condition,” so I had shut out my madrissé from all but his most ordinary service, and most especially from the easy intimacy we had shared after Dassine’s death. But he knew more than anyone of the changes in me, and it had never altered his bearing in the slightest. I found that fact inexplicably infuriating.
He held out a folded robe of white wool. “I’ll take your clothing, my lord. You’ll need nothing but this.”
I should have thought to have Bareil bring me a change of clothes, for I still wore the bloodstained shirt and breeches I’d had on for a week. It had seemed foolish to change them before trying to convince the Preceptors that I needed the Rite of Purification. They had examined the freshest stains and identified Ven’Dar’s blood. The Preceptor had insisted on it, there in his tower, while weaving his mysterious plot - the gentlest of teachers, Ven’Dar, opening a vein to slather my knife and my shirt and my hands with his blood. I hadn’t even been capable of closing the wound for him.
Bitterness welled up in my belly. “Put away the robe, Dulcé. You’ll be happy to learn I need no purification rite as yet.” Though it will be soon, I thought. Of their own volition, my hands felt for my sword, and I growled when I found the empty scabbard. Of course, Bareil had ‘ carried my sword and knife into the caves, as ritual forbade me having them during the Rite of Purification. “And you can give me back my weapons. We’ll have to enjoy these pleasantries another time.”
The perplexed Bareil laid the white robe on the floor beside the cloth-wrapped bundle that held my blades. “As you wish, my lord,” he said softly, untying the bundle and pulling away the wrappings. He kept his eyes on his work.
“We’re to meet someone here,” I said. “That’s all. I expected he would be here when we arrived.”
“And so I am.” A figure robed in dark blue stepped from out of the shadows.
“Master Ven’Dar!” Bareil’s head popped up. The newly unwrapped sword clanked on the stone floor.
“Indeed, Dulcé. I’m even more glad to be walking about than for you to see me doing it.”
The Dulcé‘s dark eyes flicked between Ven’Dar and me, filled with unreasonable hopes.
“I’ve given the Preceptor a reprieve,” I said. “Until he proves to me that Seri is safe and Paulo ready to tell me what I must hear from him. Now give me my weapons just in case he reneges on his bargain.”
Better. The unreasonable hopes were gone again. I gestured to Ven’Dar. “If you please, Preceptor… ”
Mist swirled about Ven’Dar as he crossed the cavern to stand close enough to fix his light blue eyes on my own. “Ah, my lord, where are you? You are not the one who must hear what is to be told.”
“Do not toy with me, Ven’Dar. We’ve delayed long enough.”
“I’d hoped my choice as to our meeting ground was unnecessary, but your eyes tell me otherwise. Your wife and your young friend are indeed nearby, but I cannot allow you to come to them except as your true self. There is a healing to be done that only you can attempt.”
“Impossible. You know I can do nothing for anyone.”
I grabbed his arm and exposed the angry wound he’d made in his tower. “I couldn’t even heal this.”
“Then you condemn us all.”
“I never claimed to know how to stop this war! I never asked for this life. I was dead, and Dassine should have left me dead. But as long as I’m here and as long as I’m your prince, I will do what I have to do. And you will do as I command you. Take me to Seri and Paulo.”
“I cannot, my good lord. Not until I know you will listen.”
“Damn your eyes, Ven’Dar… ” I felt like strangling him. He couldn’t have stayed so calm if he’d known how thin the tether that restrained my hand.
But even as I railed, he spoke softly. “I trust you, my lord… I know it is difficult… I understand it is not a matter of will… that’s why I brought you here.”
By the time I really heard what he was saying, I felt as though I’d fought a match in the slave pens of Zhev’Na. My hands were shaking, and I’d thrown my weapons to the far side of the pool to avoid using them. “Stars of night, what do you want of me?”
“I want you to go through the rite.”
“This?” Incredulous, I pointed to the steaming pool.
He raised his eyebrows and shrugged, rubbing his wounded arm gingerly.
I walked over to the pool and stared into the still, murky water of dark green. Steam wreathed my face, depositing a sheen of damp on my skin. “You are no saner than I.”
He stood at my side and gazed into the pool, all his wry humor vanished. “The rite cannot change what is, my lord. You are and will ever be D’Natheil, as well as Karon. But for a thousand years we have used this rite to restore balance in lives skewed so far as to damage the things we love most. It is the only thing I can think of that might counter this anger that consumes you. Don’t you see? If we could but provide you a brief interval of peace, would not that be the time to hear what Paulo has to tell? And perhaps, given that time and peace, you might be able to heal one who is dear to you. If you, in that more equitable state of mind, are still convinced that your son’s death is our only recourse, then at least you will have the comfort of knowing it was Karon who made the choice and not D’Natheil. It is all I can offer you, my lord. I profoundly wish it could be more.”
“I should kill you and be done with it.”
“That you have not is but support for my conviction. Most gratifying.”
I wanted to be rid of D’Natheil. Fifty times over the past few years I had picked up Dassine’s black crystal, the pyramid-shaped implement of my long imprisonment, the artifact that yet held my waiting death, and contemplated touching its smooth surface. Surely release from the prison of this body, this life, would free me from D’Natheil’s unrelenting anger. I had never taken that final step. I had a wife, a son, responsibilities. But if I could ease the Dar’Nethi prince’s influence over me, restore some balance…
“This is idiocy, Ven’Dar. You’ve taken my wife and my prisoner. Men’Thor is to meet me the moment I leave here to plan the assault on Zhev’Na. The fate of two worlds rests in my hand, and you want to give me a bath.”
He held out his hand and smiled. “Seven baths, my lord. May your heart be eased.”
Our histories say the seven pools have existed since the beginning of time, but that in the years leading up to the Catastrophe and the beginning of our terrible war they were rarely used. Their effects were too strange and unsettling. Only in D’Arnath’s time, when the world was forever changed, did the Balancer Laennara discover the benefits of using the seven pools in turn and create the Rite of Purification. Life is, of all things, the most precious to the Dar’Nethi, and the taking of life throws our private worlds out of balance like a reflection of the great Catastrophe. We are very good at dealing with our joys and sorrows, but our guilts can be devastating.