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?”
“I don’t know. It didn’t seem like the time to ask him. Now be quiet and come with me.”
I took off across the cracked dry earth of the valley floor, the reluctant princess lagging behind me. For everything - hurry! The distance across the exposed valley stretched impossibly far, and before very long a stitch in my side protested my long idleness. But the echo of Karon’s command drove me on until we had scrambled up the rocky incline at the southern edge of the valley. I had to trust him.
“Here,” I said, collapsing behind the first boulder that commanded a view behind us. “I can’t go any more just now.”
“I couldn’t go any more half an hour ago,” said the panting girl. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. Maybe something went wrong in the healing, or… I just don’t know.”
“Is the earth going to open up, something like that, like the firestorms in the Bounded? I’ve become accustomed to other things, but not that.”
“I don’t think so. But, Roxanne, if I tell you someone’s coming, I want you to clear your mind of every thought. Focus your attention on a rock or the sky, but don’t think of where you are or who you are or anyone or anything you know. No questions, no sounds or sensations, no fears. Make yourself empty. Do you understand me? Do you think you can do that?”
“Like ‘think of yourself out’? I believe I’m beginning to speak your sorcerer’s language.”
“The less substantial your thoughts, the more difficult for anyone to locate you with sorcery. We’ll hope we won’t have to do it.”
Across the dark valley, blurs of light moved rapidly down the slope where I had lain waiting such a short time ago. Riders carrying torches, at least ten horsemen. A few of them dismounted at the ruin, and light soon blazed from inside the walls as well as out. After a time, three men emerged from the ruin, leading someone who stumbled and fell. They dragged him up and placed him on the back of a horse, binding his hands to the saddle. Slender shoulders, long legs, dark hair… Gerick.