Restoration (18 page)

“It is not as you expected, is it?” My gaze returned to the lean figure, who was turning his back to me. “Well, I'm not going to stand out in the rain while you decide whether you would rather gawk or converse. You can come if you wish.” He set out briskly along the gravel path toward the castle.

“Wait!” I called to his rapidly disappearing back. He was almost at the wide steps and pillared portico before I caught up with him. Even then he kept moving up the steps, into a wide hall where muted light from high glass windows left a sheen on smooth columns and marble statuary.

How to begin? Ask him if the one imprisoned here truly wished to destroy the world? Have him tell me what was my connection to the prisoner's dreadful plan? I had not passed through the gateway at Dasiet Homol, so how was it possible that I walked Kir‘Navarrin? I had once touched a painted image that convinced me this fortress was the source of profound darkness; why did I not feel that now I was here? Was this lean old man the jailer of an angry god? “I would very much like to speak with you,” I said, hurrying alongside him.

“If you don't mind, I would like to get a dry shirt first. Not all of us are so fortunate as you to escape a soaking.” He strode into a finely appointed room: patterned carpets of dark green and red, tall windows that opened onto the portico and the garden, a marble hearth three times the height of a man, carved so that the tall, slender figures of a man and a woman who gazed down serenely upon the well-proportioned room seemed about to emerge from the stone. Around the walls were lamps of crystal and painted glass, gleaming with soft light. A small table beside the fire held a checkered game board of black and gray glass and on it the carved game pieces for warriors and castles.

“Kasparian, where are you?” the man called out in annoyance as he threw his cloak onto a padded bench and hurried to the fire, pulling off his soggy, plum-colored shirt to reveal a broad chest covered with gray hair. Almost before he had the word out, a man and a woman bustled through a door beside the hearth. The man carried a towel, a green shirt, and a dark green cloak, while the woman set a tray of porcelain cups and teapots, crystal goblets and carafes on a side table. The serving man—for so he seemed to be—retrieved the wet shirt and began fussing with the towel about the man's head and chest. The old gentleman snatched the towel and threw it to the floor, motioning for the dry shirt and the green robe, grumbling, “I am not a child needing to be blotted.” The serving man did not seem to notice the comment, as he stooped down, recovered the towel, and began to dab at the old man's boots.

The woman poured hot liquid from the pot into the cup and proceeded to stir in sugar and fragrant spices. “No, no. I want wine,” demanded the old man. My host—I had no other name to call him—soon dry and dressed, began tapping his foot while the serving woman ignored him and went on with her preparations. Only when she had the cup steeping and covered with a thin glass plate did she pour wine—three varieties into three goblets—and what appeared to be dark brown ale into a silver tankard. As the two servants withdrew, the old man sighed and snatched a wineglass from the table, speaking to himself as much as to me. “One would think I'd get used to such petty annoyances. I've become so accustomed to the general way of things, I'd almost be willing to stay put, as so many seem to wish, but truly it is the trivial that creates the greatest burden. And Kasparian, who devotes himself to relieving those burdens, cannot understand why they exasperate me so.” He sipped pale wine and darted a sideways glance at me. “You are not so big as I expected.”

Never had I been so utterly bereft of words.

The old man shook his head slightly, as if coming to himself. “You are uncomfortable. I had no intent to be rude.” He motioned to a chair beside the fire. “Do come and sit. You wanted to talk.”

Abandoning all expectation, I blurted out the mad, impossible whimsy that had taken shape as I watched and listened. “You are the prisoner.”

His dark eyes widened in mock amazement. “A day replete with surprises. I would celebrate if I could remember how to do such a thing.” His features were fine: high cheekbones, jaw and brow that might have been formed from the same granite as his mountain prison, thick gray hair and beard trimmed close. A dignified, aristocratic look about him, but no evidence of ill nature, save his peevish humor. Nothing of hatred or cruelty written on his visage, though I hunted carefully for the signs. And his dark, intelligent eyes told no different story. They were deep and clear, like snow-fed mountain lakes on a moonlit midnight, eyes that seemed far younger than his body. I did not shift my own sight to look more deeply. I could not think his was a soul to be probed without consequence.

He sat in a high-backed wooden chair beside the hearth, drawing his green cloak close about him and stretching his boots toward the flames.

This man, this place, could be but creations of my diseased mind. This experience was certainly some type of dreaming ... only in dreams and visions could one walk through rain and remain dry. Yet I did not believe any dream could be so contrary to the dreamer's preconceptions. “Who are you?” I demanded, as if a simple answer would make everything clear.

“You're a blunt sort of fellow.” Again he waved me to the chair. “Well, I suppose I am the same of late, as you see. But at least do me the courtesy of pretending politeness. Allow me to demonstrate that I recall a bit about civilized behavior.”

Dreamlike, I moved to the hard, straight-backed chair facing him. The table with the glass game board sat between us. About half of the pieces of each color—black and white—sat to one side, as if a game had been interrupted.

“Do you play?” The simple question was spoken gruffly, like all his speech.

“I know how. I'm not proficient.” He had not answered my own question, but I could not think what else to say.

He fingered the black pieces... obsidian, the black glass found near old volcanoes. The white were alabaster. “I persuaded Kasparian to learn, but he sees no more use in games than he sees in conversation. Every few days, he steels himself and offers to play, but I thank him and refuse. I get no pleasure from tormenting him. I often wonder if I remember the rules correctly.”

“I'll play if you like.”

His eyes popped up, and for the first time he looked me full in the face. “That would be fine. Quite fine.” Remarkable eyes.

And so we pulled our chairs close to the table and set the pieces in their squares. I, as white player, began, and we exchanged several moves before he spoke again. “You can call me Nyel.”

Nyel. In the language of the rai-kirah, the word meant “forgotten.”

“It seems you know me already,” I said, pushing one of my castles two squares forward.

He dipped his head in acknowledgment and contemplated my move. After only a few moments, he moved a black rider and captured one of my warriors. “I've had no wish to frighten you.”

“No wish to frighten ... I don't believe that.” His assertion was so absurd that it shook me from my careful reticence. I thought of the dreams he had touched: my death visions of this very fortress that haunted my nights, and the dreams that had lured me into the demon realm—the image of a black and silver warrior whose power filled me with despair and dread. Both visions implied that I was to bring destruction to everything I valued. What man or woman would not be frightened?

“Power is frightening,” he said. “Great power extremely so. But fear was never my intent.”

“Then you miscalculated.”

“Your fear does not diminish my estimation of you. I know how I am perceived in the worlds. Even the staunchest heart must blanch in the face of uttermost evil.” He might have been speaking of a preference for onions over radishes.

This dry poke at himself did nothing to restore my equilibrium, thrown off so badly by this strange visit. I took a moment to survey the game board and gather my wits. I laid a finger on one of my warriors ... then took it away again as I saw the danger in the move. Instead, I shifted one of my priests to protect my lady queen. “If not to intimidate me, then why any of it?”

Without hesitation he used his rider again to capture another white warrior. “Because I want to be free. I am not immortal, despite what stories say of me. I am coming to the end of a very long life, most of which has been spent locked away in this place. Pleasant though it be, it is still a prison. So—this is not so difficult a concept—there are a few things I would like to do before I die. Perhaps to walk the world beyond these walls.”

I shifted a rider to threaten his. “You've been trying to escape. Using others, manipulating them... with dreams, I think, as you have with me.” I could not even begin to tally the names of the dead that lay at his feet—rai—kirah, Ezzarians, Khelid, the un-countable victims of the demon war—yet the dead seemed so very remote beside the consuming reality of this moment.

“Every captive has the right to yearn for freedom. There is a certain madness in bondage... you know of it. We are driven to make compromises that we would abhor in other circumstances.”

Disconcerting to think that he knew so much of me, and I so little of him. My demon and I had both made compromises to be free, and our choices had not been guiltless. Yet surely Nyel's crimes must outweigh my own; my ancestors had riven their souls for fear of him. What had he done? And what did he see in me that made him think I would be his tool? I could not allow myself to be mesmerized by disarming frankness and a friendly game. “Why me?”

He kept his eyes fixed upon the game and drew his obsidian priest halfway across the glass to threaten my king. “Your power, of course. That's what I've been trying to tell you. Of all beings in the worlds, you have the power to release me. You have power enough to do a great many things.”

This was the first lie I had heard from him. Not that what he said was untrue. Now that he laid it out, it was obvious that my dreams had been crafted to tell me exactly that—I had power beyond telling. But I also sensed that his words were not the truthful answer to my question.

As I contemplated the game board and this odd discourse, the woman servant returned, bringing hot water to replenish the teapot, a plate of frosted cakes, and a bowl of plump red grapes.

Nyel jumped up from his chair and strode to the window, peering out into the misty afternoon. “Where is the cursed Kasparian? I've no mind for sweets and dainties. I've climbed the mountain path today and would dine early.”

The woman did not respond. She left the room and returned with a silver salver piled high with sugared dates. The manservant poked up the fire, turned up the lamps, and drew the curtains against the failing light. Nyel might not have been in the room for all the note they took of him. They performed their duties without speech or deference. When the manservant brought soft slippers, he did not approach Nyel or ask if he was ready, but knelt in front of Nyel's empty chair. He waited there motionless until the old man sighed in exasperation, sat down, and allowed his damp boots to be removed and replaced with the softer shoes.

Just as the two servants left the room, another man hurried through the door, buttoning a high collar about a neck as thick as my waist. Unlike the servants, he addressed Nyel directly, bowing with respectful familiarity. “I am shamed, Master. How could I have missed his coming?” His shoulders and chest were in proportion to his neck—a giant of a man. Wet brown hair, long and thick, was threaded with gray. His apparel, apparently thrown on carelessly, was simple—dark brown vest and breeches, white shirt, and worn boots. He had not been in so much hurry as to leave off his weapon, however, a formidable sword in a battered sheath. On observing the hard-edged patterns of his face, I surmised that the weapon would always be the last thing he left off.

“His arrival was unconventional, as is his continued presence,” said Nyel, acknowledging the newcomer's respectful address with a slight nod. “It seems he needed no admission to our charmed fortress.”

The man's wide hands, freed of occupation now that his collar was fastened, settled to his hips as he stared at me in frank appraisal. After a moment his eyes widened. “He isn't really here at all!”

Nyel propped his chin on his hand and raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps it is more accurate to say that he is with us in spirit only. He has yet to take the more decisive step of passing through the last breach.”

“So he is still human.” The derisive hatred with which the newcomer spit out this accusation threw Nyel's amiable sparring into darker context.

“No,” snapped Nyel. “He was never that. Mind your tongue.” The man dipped his head. “We differ, as always, Master. I can say only as I see.”

“Before we set off arguing again, will you tell your benighted minions that I am ready to dine? I climbed today and am like to wither away altogether without sustenance.”

The man bowed and withdrew. Nyel slumped in his chair, staring at the game board. I didn't think his mind was on our game—certainly not the one we played with black and white pieces.

“I never thought to see others in this place,” I said. “Who are they?”

Nyel glanced up. “The servants are ... creations ... neither human nor anything else. Made to serve my comfort, though, as you see, I cannot command them. Nor can I kill them.” He grimaced ruefully. “I must confess, at times I've been driven to try. When I die, they will vanish as if they had never been.”

“But this other man ...”

“Kasparian. Like me, a captive in this gracious house. Though, unlike me, he chose it freely.”

“He chose to be imprisoned?”