Restoration (44 page)

... yet truly, there was more.

Beyond the pools and grassy hills, a dense forest stretched before me to the horizon. The river beyond the forest was called the Serrhio—the Bone River—because of its white rocks. The mountains beyond the river were called Zethar Aerol, the Teeth of the Wind. At one time, this path of crushed white stone beneath my feet had led ... where? A town? No, more like a village, yet not even that. We hadn't clustered together like humans, but had spread our houses throughout the countryside, for we could travel easily—fly, if we wished—to find anything or anyone we needed. We, the rekkonarre who made our home in this land. Knowledge of the world I walked was neither wrenched from reluctant hands nor yielded grudgingly to serve a common need. Mine, too, these things.

Just above the western horizon was a pattern of ten stars, the Harper we had called it in my youth—not my time of growing in Ezzaria, but seasons spent here. I had always been fascinated by the stars, and in the space of five minutes, I named fifty of them and located the wanderers: the blue Carab, seen only in autumn, and Elemiel, red companion to the sun, showing itself only near sunrise and sunset, and Valagora, the brightest object in the sky next to the moon itself—the larger moon that existed here in Kir‘Navarrin, my home. I knelt down at the edge of the path and scrabbled feverishly in the thick grass until I could scrape up a handful of dirt. I squeezed my hand around it and inhaled its rich aroma, evoking an inner understanding that told me I was three days' walk from home ... and anger rose from my depths and thundered through my veins like the spring torrents from off the mountains. Lost for so long in the dark and frozen wasteland, deprived of the dome of stars, of this sweet-scented earth ... so much lost ... stolen ... torn away in fire and jasnyr smoke. I had never wanted to believe that we were bound to flesh ... despicable, cowering, always hungering flesh—

I wrenched my thoughts away from this uncomfortable path, emotions that had entwined themselves in my blood and bone. What was my name?
Seyonne.
Who was my family?
Gareth, Joelle, Elen, Ysanne, who had been Queen, Evan-diargh—dead, all of them dead, save the child who was dead to me for I had given him away . . . and ...
No further answer came to me. Good.
Knowledge is welcome. Nothing more.
But I hungered for more, like a beggar who arrives at last at the alms gate, only to hear the bar falling into place inside the door.

So, make the best of new knowledge. I needed to plan my course: go to the gamarand wood and investigate its mysteries, find the rai-kirah and discover why their life was failing, learn anything and everything that might help me understand the one I had come here to face. Why was I the only one who could free the prisoner in the tower? Why was I so sure that I could moderate Nyel's hatred, when I knew so little of its cause and so little of his power? He could not be trusted. What was the nature of his prison—the wall and the gamarand wood? The answers I craved were waiting for me here—and power, such melydda in this land, flowing into me with every breath, every step, through every sense, its force building like a dammed-up river ... waiting ...

So, what might I already know of the danger in Tyrrad Nor ... I, who remained Seyonne, yet knew more than Seyonne? Gingerly, I pushed open the doors of remembrance. I knew everything of life in Kir‘Vagonoth, of my thousand years of bitter exile, but beyond that, from the time before the split, the time here in my ... yes, my own true life ... very little. A few names, a few images unrelated to my fundamental questions. We had traveled the ways as Blaise did. We favored unleavened bread. Those who lived in the far north raced wind boats that skimmed the surface of frozen lakes. A child's naming day was in his twelfth year of life. No answers. No stores of knowledge about Nyel or the prison or prophecies or reasons. What I found were the scraps and castoffs left behind in a herdsmen's camp when the people had long moved on.

Disconcerting. Perhaps I was still holding back, masking the important things in my fear of the demon-joining. Tentatively, carefully, not daring to believe that I had passed the moment of greatest danger, I relaxed the internal barriers. Silence. Stillness. No raging demon. No hidden knowledge of Tyrrad Nor. No answers. Whatever remained of Denas was already a part of me. Everything else was lost. I knew what Gordain must have felt when he first woke to see the void where his leg had once been.

I struck out across the hillside through grass as high as my knee and down a slope toward one of the pools. My throat felt like sand. I dropped to my knees and dipped my hands into the still water, swirls of blood disturbing the pure reflection of the stars as I scooped out great handfuls of water and doused my fevered head and poured it down my throat. Only as I tasted the flat metallic trace of blood in the water did I think of what I was doing ... washing my bloody hands directly in the pond and drinking the same water ... forbidden by Ezzarian law for a thousand years lest we come to revel in the taste of blood and filth and thus allow a demon into our souls. I yanked my hands out of the pool, and as the ripples settled, my face came into view, a dark reflection that blocked out a portion of the stars. Nervous, apprehensive, yet driven to discover what I had become, I peered into my own eyes, using my Warden's sight to look past the blue fire and into the darkness beyond. Into the abyss ...

I started laughing then, wrapping my arms over my head and pressing my forehead to the cool grass. The truth was waiting there inside me. Vainly I tried to retreat, to force my mind back to the world I had just abandoned, to forge a stronger link that might hold me to my purpose. But my own investigations would have to wait. Nyel was reaching for me even now, my eyes and thoughts drawn to him as a blooming flower bends to face the sun.

You said you would come back to finish our game. Are you ready?
The voice was everywhere—inside, outside, in my mind, in my ears—the voice of my dreams.

Of course not,
I said, kneeling on the silver-kissed grass, as the tide of inevitability swept me onward.
Who could ever be ready to game with a god?
Not I, whose prideful resolve to save the world on my own terms had left me vulnerable to his seductions. Whose very strength had played into my enemy's hands. While struggling to bind Denas, I had allowed Nyel to take such a grip on my heart and mind and soul that to deny him would tear me asunder. I could no more refuse his summons than I could cut off my own hand.

He laughed, not unkindly.
Come, then, and we will talk awhile before we play.

I folded my arms across my breast and transformed, then flew across the dark and silent land to Tyrrad Nor. He was waiting on the ramparts of the night, as I had always known he would be.

“Did you sleep well?” The cool, damp tartness of a fall morning poured through the open doors and windows as I walked into the room and Nyel raised his glass to me.

“I appreciate your indulgence of a night without dreams,” I said, selecting a cup of fragrant tea from a sideboard laden with every delicacy that one might desire for a morning meal. We were in the same room as before—the high-ceilinged room with the tall windows overlooking the garden, the mantelpiece carved in the form of man and woman, and the game board set before the cheerful fire ... waiting for me. “I had forgotten what it was like to really sleep.”

“Now you are here, I can converse with you face-to-face. In the meanwhile, I had to make my points as best I could. You were so everlasting slow in coming back.”

His pique had shown more forcefully at his initial greeting, when my feet had touched the ramparts on the previous night. This morning his chiding was more of a reminder than a reproach, a positioning, setting the groundwork for our relationship. He was feeling more expansive and satisfied on this morning. I was here. That's what he had wanted all along.

“Several matters needed my attention,” I said. “An inordinate number of problems have cropped up everywhere of late.”

“And still you lay these problems at my feet.”

I watched his deep, clear eyes, so striking in his gray-bearded face. He knew very well of my beliefs and my hopes ... and my fears ... all so foolishly revealed in our first encounter. I would have to do better at keeping my counsel. “I stand here drinking your tea. I wear no weapon.”

Indeed my own weapons and the grimy clothes I had stripped off the previous night had vanished before morning. I had waked in the vast bedchamber to find a copper tub of delightfully hot water sitting ready in a patch of sunlight. For the first time in months I could enjoy myself by getting thoroughly clean. But gnawing disdain for such self-indulgence, as well as impatience to get on with whatever my host had in mind for me, spoiled my pleasure and had me out of the bath quickly. Laid out on my bed were linen undergarments, dark breeches and hose, a silk shirt of forest green, and vest and boots of pale leather as soft as a child's cheek, even a dark green ribbon to tie back my wet hair. And beside the clothes lay a sword and a dagger and a wide leather belt with beautifully tooled sheaths for each weapon. The sword was fine—a long, tapering blade of gleaming steel, a comfortable and elegant grip of metal rings, suitable for one or two hands, and a simple rounded pommel, substantial enough to balance the long blade. The guard was slightly curved, and both pommel and guard were chased with silver in a pleasing pattern of vines and leaves. The dagger was similar, simple in design, perfect in balance and edge. I did not strap them on. To wield a weapon of Nyel's giving would surely be an act of significance that I could not yet fully comprehend. Best to leave them where they lay. And, indeed, who were they to be used on?

Nyel answered that question without my asking. “Of course, you have no need for swords and daggers here. But knowing how you value your training for your human enterprises, I thought you might enjoy superior weapons,” he said, taking up a plate of bread and sausage and carrying it to a table that sat beside the open doors to the garden. His evocation of the word “human” carried only a modest level of disgust. “Come now. Eat. Share my hospitality, and then we'll have Kasparian come and show you about my fortress. I'd like to think you'll stay for a while. Learn. Listen. And only then decide on your future ... and mine. I've been waiting a very long time for you.”

“Until we resolve our differences I have nowhere else to be.” For myself, I was not feeling particularly expansive. “However, I would appreciate a quick resolution.”

“Quick, eh?” Nyel stabbed a knife into a sausage and examined it before taking a bite off the end. “And when you've done with the lunatic Madonai, you think to go back to your human master and serve him again? Be his instrument of war? Save him from the consequences of his own human—Ah!” He tossed his knife and its savory burden onto his plate. “Not a good beginning. I told you we would talk first.”

I took up a slice of smoked fowl, three oatcakes, and a handful of strawberries and joined him at his table. “I'll answer your questions when you answer mine,” I said. “The only difficulty is choosing which one to ask first. Something about three imprisoned Wardens in Kir‘Vagonoth, or the assassination of an Emperor, or perhaps an inquiry related to the homecoming of the rai-kirah, who are not finding Kir'Navarrin to be a long-lived solution to their problems. They're afraid to sleep. You
do
know they've come back here?” I dived into the food as if I were in no hurry for answers. Posturing. We might have been boys strutting our wooden weapons before each other. Only his had a steel edge, I feared, while mine was but bark and splinters.

He grimaced and ran a thumb over his knife hilt. “All right, all right. Fair enough.” Though I kept my attention on my breakfast, I felt his old young eyes linger on my face for a while before settling to his plate. I experimented to make sure I could still breathe after the pressure of his scrutiny. He picked up his knife and cut off another bit of his sausage, but toyed with it instead of eating. “I think I used up all my stores of polite conversation a very long time ago,” he said gruffly. “With so much to say between us, so much to learn, to teach, to understand, I find it difficult to speak of the weather—which looks to be fair until late today—or the food, which, as you see, is nothing remarkable.”

“Everything here is remarkable,” I said, finishing off my unremittingly bland but quite adequate meal. “My own presence not least of all. Before you do with me as you will, I would like to understand the fundamental question. Why am I here?”

“I told you before—”

“—that I alone had the power to set you free. That's what you said.”

“And it's true.” The sausage might have been stuffed with diamonds, for the intense attention he was giving it. Subtlety, it seemed, had gone the way of polite conversation.

“But that was not and is not the answer to the question,” I said. “Your aim is not to be free. You would never have allowed me to see your hand in the world if that was your objective. Somehow you've caused these horrors, and you've made them live in my mind until I forbid myself to sleep, until I've begun to see them before my eyes every minute of every day. You've infected me with your own madness, so that I can't even remember which of the vile deeds were my own, but I know that in the past few months, I have done things I would once have considered reprehensible.” Elinor had seen it, and Catrin, and Aleksander, and they had tried to tell me that I was not the man they knew. “Three worlds are on the brink of chaos,” I said, “and I believe you are responsible. You know I cannot and will not share your hatred of humans, and so I could never set you free—not feeling as you do. I must assume that I'm here for some other reason.”