Guardians of the Keep: Book Two of the Bridge of D'Arnath (9 page)

could cross the Verges into the afterlife and held it—him—captive for ten terrible years, believing Karon

was the last hope of the Dar’Nethi and their world.

“We still have some years, some of the best and all of the worst, yet to travel. He remembers his

youth as Karon, twenty-odd years of it, through the time of his return to the University after his years in

hiding. But he remembers nothing of the twenty years since that time or why he has two lives when others

have only one.”

“So he does not yet know he was dead?”

“No.”

“And he does not remember me or our son?”

“He has not ‘met’ you in his past as yet. Nor has he yet confronted the decision that caused his

execution—the decision that abandoned your child and your friends to death and you to humiliation and

exile. My aim is to restore the man that made that decision, not to change him into someone else whose

choice might have suited you better. Can you leave aside your feelings about those events as you speak

to him?”

His gaze was penetrating, and as unrelenting as his harsh words. When he had been arrested, Karon

had chosen not to use his power to save himself or the rest of us, believing that use of sorcery to injure

others—even his captors—was a fundamental violation of the healing gift he had been given, sacrilege.

Anger and bitterness at his choice had blighted my life for ten years. “My feelings about his decision are

unchanged, Dassine, but neither would I change the heart that made it. I’ll wait until he is whole again to

resolve our disagreement.”

Though his eyes lingered on my face, the sorcerer jerked his head in satisfaction. “Understand that he

also remembers nothing of the events of last summer or your journey together. They will need to be

relived in their turn. He is, to put it mildly, in a state of confusion, a most delicate state which you must do

nothing to upset. This is really not a good time to bring him. Not at all.” Clearly, this argument with

himself was not a new dispute.

“Then why did you?”

Dassine sighed and leaned his chin on his white cane. “I know you think me cruel to have imprisoned

Karon’s soul for so long, and wicked to have arranged D’Natheil’s mortal injury. And so I may be.

What I do with him now is painful and exhausting as well. Every memory I give him must live again. Every

sensation, every emotion, every sound, every smell . . . the experiences of days or months compressed

into a few hours until his senses are raw. I press him hard, for though we have this interval that he won for

us by his actions at the Gate, I don’t know how long it will last. ”

“Your war is not ended, then?”

“The assaults on Avonar have ceased—a blessing, of course. But our peace is uneasy and

unaccustomed. No one knows quite what to do. The people of Avonar rejoice that the Heir of D’Arnath

lives, and they know that he was somehow changed by his journey here in the summer and his victory at

the Bridge, but they’ve not yet seen him. He has managed to put off the Preceptors with a brief audience,

but their patience is wearing thin. And the Lords of Zhev’Na . . . our enemies, too, wait . . . and we do

not know for what. I must use this time to bring back our Heir to lead us.” Dassine rapped his stick on

the frozen ground as if some Zhid warrior were hiding under the snow. A rabbit scuttered out from under

the bench and paused under a fallen trellis, twitching indignantly. “But I’ve no wish to kill him. He needs

an hour’s respite . . . and someone other than his taskmaster to share it with.”

“What must I do?” I said.

“Follow my instructions precisely. Say nothing of your acquaintance and marriage. Nothing of your

friends. Nothing—absolutely nothing—of his death. They are not his memories yet, and to mention them

could do irreparable harm. If he speaks of himself—either self—then let him. As far as he knows, you

are a friend of mine and know his history, but have met him only this year.”

“Then what can I say to him?”

“Be a friend to him. Ease him. You were his friend before you were his wife. Now go. He thinks I’m

here to consult an old ally, but, in truth, I’m tired and plan to take a nap.”

Before I could ask even one of my hundred questions, Dassine leaned back, closed his eyes, and

vanished. There was nothing to do but walk toward the end of the path.

He stood motionless, solitary, bathed in winter sunlight, facing a gnarled, bare-limbed tree that

creaked in the cold. The white hood masked his profile, and his arms were folded into his white cloak, so

that he might have been some strange snowdrift left in the garden by the passing storm, something only an

enchanter could transform into human shape. I didn’t even know what name to call him. “Good morning,

Your Grace,” I said, dipping my knee.

He bowed to me in answer to my greeting, but said nothing and did not raise his hood to reveal his

face. He remained facing the tree.

“The tree is a lambina,” I said, “native to lands well east and south of here, lands less extreme in their

climate. In spring it flowers, brilliant yellow blossoms as large as your hand, their scent very delicate, like

lemon and ginger. When the flowers fade in early summer, they don’t fall, but float away on the first

breeze like bits of yellow silk. Then the tree blooms again, almost immediately, small, white, feathery

flowers with bright yellow centers, each in a cluster of waxy green leaves. It’s very beautiful.”

“I’ve seen it,” he said, so softly that I almost didn’t hear him. “The leaves turn dark red in autumn.”

“This one hasn’t bloomed in many years. I’m hoping it’s only dormant.”

With movements spare and graceful, he stepped across the snowy lawn to the tree and laid a hand on

its gnarled trunk. “There is life in it.”

Beneath my warm cloak, the hairs on my arms prickled. “I’m glad to know that.”

“You’re Lady Seriana, Dassine’s friend.” So strange to hear the disembodied voice coming from the

shapeless robe and drooping hood. I strained to hear some trace of the person I knew in the quiet

words.

“He said you might like someone to talk to while he was about his business.”

“Please don’t feel obliged. It’s cold out here, and you’d be more comfortable inside. I’ll await my

keeper as he commanded. He knows he needn’t set a guard on me.”

“I don’t consider it a burden to speak with you.”

“A curiosity, perhaps.”

“I’ll ask no questions.”

“And answer none? Dassine’s not very good at it— answering questions, that is. I can’t imagine he

would permit someone else to answer things that he would not.”

I smiled at this wry disgruntlement, even as I blinked away an unwanted pricking in my eyes. “I’ll

confess that he’s asked me to be circumspect.”

“Then you
do
know more than I.” His curiosity tugged at the conversation like a pup.

“About some things.”

“It sets quite a burden on an acquaintance when one knows more than the other.” The note I detected

in his voice was not anger. Nor did it seem to be resentment that kept his countenance hidden under his

hood. I felt the blood rush to his skin as if it were my own. Earth and sky, he was embarrassed.

I shook the crusted snow off a sprangling shrub, and the branches bounced up, showering me with ice

crystals and almost hitting me in the face. “I think this could be considered an interesting
variation
of

acquaintance,” I said, brushing the chilly dusting off my cloak. “And, as many things have happened since

I met you last, we should start again anyway, don’t you think?”

“
I
certainly have no choice in the matter.” His tone demonstrated a most familiar irony and good

humor. My heart soared.

“All right, then. We shall ignore all past acquaintance and begin right now. You may call me Seri. I am

thirty-six years old, and I live in this hoary edifice you see before you. A temporary situation, though

there was a time— Ah, I forget myself. No past. I am a poor relation to the lord who rules here, though

circumstances have placed me in charge of the household—not an inconsiderable responsibility. I am well

educated, though not as up-to-date in many areas as I’d like, and I have a secret ambition to teach

history in our kingdom’s center of learning. Now tell me of yourself.”

“I believe you already know who I am.”

“No, sir. If I must begin again, then you must do the same.”

“It is required?” His voice was low.

I let go of my teasing for a moment. “Only if you wish it. I am not Dassine.”

With another bow, he turned to me and lifted the hood from his face. His eyes were cast down, and

his cheeks were flushed as I had known they would be. “It seems I have several names. You must

choose the one that suits.”

“Aeren,” I said without thinking. Tall. Fair hair grown long enough to tie back with a white ribbon.

Wide, muscular shoulders. Square jaw and strong, narrow cheeks that might have been sculpted to

match the fairest carvings of our warrior gods. Wide-set eyes of astonishing blue.

At the time of his death, Karon had been thirty-two, slight of build, dark-haired and boyishly

handsome, with high cheekbones and a narrow jaw. The rough-hewn stranger who had dropped into my

life on Midsummer’s Day looked nothing like Karon. I had called him Aeren, for he had no memory of

himself except that he shared a name with the bird—a gray falcon—that screeched over Poacher’s

Ridge. I had learned that his own language named him D’Natheil, but this man was not D’Natheil either. I

felt no scarcely restrained menace from him, The threadwork of lines about his eyes, the strands of silver

in his fair hair, the air of quiet dignity stated that the one who stood in my mother’s garden was older,

wiser, more thoughtful than the violent twenty-two-year-old Prince of Avonar. But he was not my

husband ... or so I told myself.

“As you wish.” Even as he accepted my judgment, he glanced up at me.

My breath caught. In that brief moment, as had happened four months ago in an enchanted cavern, I

glimpsed the truth that lived behind his blue eyes. This was no one but Karon.

I started to speak his true name, to see if those syllables on my lips might spark some deeper

memory. But no light of recognition had crossed his face when his eyes met mine.
Patience
, Dassine had

said.
You were his friend before you were his wife
. He looked very tired.

“Would you like to walk?” I said. “There’s not much to see in this garden, but walking would be

warmer as we wait.”

“I’d like that very much. I can’t seem to get enough of walking outdoors.”

Inside, I danced and leaped and crowed with delight; Karon had
never
gotten enough of walking out

of doors. Outwardly, I smiled and gestured toward the path.

My boots crunched quietly as we strolled through the frosty morning. Karon broke our

companionable silence first. “Tell me more of yourself.”

“What kind of things?”

“Anything. It’s refreshing to hear of someone who isn’t me.”

I laughed and began to speak of things I enjoyed, of books and conversation, of puzzles and music,

of meadows and gardens. He chuckled when I told him of my first awkward attempts at growing

something other than flowers. “Jonah couldn’t understand why his plants produced no beans, until the

day he found me diligently picking off the blooms. I told him that my gardener had once said that plants

would grow larger if we didn’t let them flower. Poor Jonah laughed until tears came, telling me that until

we could eat the leaves I had best leave the flowers be. I had ruined the entire planting, a good part of

their winter sustenance. It was devastating for one so proud of her intellect as I, but it was only the first of

many gaps in my experience I was to discover.”

“This Jonah sounds like a kind gentleman. He was not your family, though, for if his crop was a good

part of his winter sustenance, he was not the lord of this manor.”

Careful, Seri. Careful
. “Jonah and Anne were like parents to me. I was estranged from my own

family at the time.”

“But now you are reconciled?”

“They’re all dead now, my mother and my father and my only brother. The lord of this house is my

ten-year-old nephew, and the lady is his mother, a somewhat . . . self-absorbed . . . young widow.”

“We have something in common, then. I’ve gained and lost two families in these past months, one I

loved and one I hardly knew. And now I’m left with only Dassine.”

“And does Dassine teach you to grow beans, or does he pout, whine, and tell you nasty gossip?”

His laugh was deep and rich, an expression of his soul’s joy that had nothing to do with memory. “He

has taught me a great deal, and done his share of pouting and cajoling, but no interesting gossip and

certainly nothing of beans. Beans must be beyond my own experience also.” They were. I knew they

were. I laughed with him.

The path led us toward a sagging arbor, a musty passage so hopelessly entangled with dead, matted

vines that the sun could not penetrate it. Without thinking I followed my longtime habit and looked for an

alternate way. But to avoid traversing the arbor we would need to trample through a muddy snarl of

shrubbery or retrace our steps.

“Is there a problem with the path?” Karon asked, as I hesitated.

“No,” I said, feeling foolish. “I just need to let my eyes adjust so I won’t trip over whatever may be