Carol Berg - Restoration

RESTORATION

CAROL BERG

A ROC BOOK

First Roc Printing, August 2002 10 987654 3 21

Cover art: Matt Stawicki Designer: Ray Lundgren

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the authors

imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means

(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of

both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

To all true heroes and heroines

CHAPTER 1

I was living in the land of demons when I first came to believe that the god-stories of the Ezzarians were

true. Being Ezzarian myself, I had heard tales of Verdonne and her son Valdis from the time I was

cradled, my faith in their relevance waxing and waning as I progressed along the journey of my life. But

by the time I had survived sixteen years of slavery and reclaimed my life. I had discovered undeniable

evidence of the gods. I had seen the feadnach—the light of destiny—emblazoned on the soul of an

arrogant Derzhi prince, which told me that the heir to the most brutal of empires was destined to

transform the world. Beside such a wonder, how could I doubt my growing suspicion that I had some

part to play in the story of the Nameless God?

“You know planting,” said the woman from behind my shoulder. “You’ve a deft hand with seedlings.”

Wiping the sweat from my brow with the back of a dirty hand, I shifted myself and the basket of rista

shoots down the newly tilled row. Though the early spring air was still cool, the morning sun on my back

was broiling. “My father worked the fields of Ezzaria,” I said. “He took me with him every day until I

started my schooling. It comes back.”

I picked off the lower leaves of the plant, then scooped out a hole, inserted the tender shoot, and

repacked the cool black soil snugly about the feathery roots and stem, winding about them the simple

enchantments of steady growth and resistance to disease. Rista seedlings were fragile, but with a little

nurturing and a nudge of sorcery, they would provide a harvest far more bounteous and reliable than

wheat.

I was a guest of the woman and her husband, repaying a night’s stay in their quiet green valley by helping

with spring planting. For most of my life I had been caught up in the death and violence of a war that

could not end. Now that I had done what I could to change the course of that conflict, a quiet morning

and a little dirt under my fingernails felt very close to happiness.

The woman came around to the other side of the double row, set down her own basket, and went to

work. Her shining black braid draped gracefully over her shoulder, and her long fingers made quick work

of setting the plants. Elinor had a lively intelligence and a wide knowledge of the world, despite the

isolation of her current home. But she knew very little of Ezzarians. “So your father was not a warrior as

you were, a… what is it called?”

“A Warden? No. He had no melydda, thus he had no choice in his profession. Ezzarians without true

power must do whatever work is required of them.” Those of us found to have power for sorcery were

nurtured and trained and allowed to choose our own way to fight the demon war. Until one learned new

truths and betrayed it all.

She glanced up at me without pausing her quick fingers. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to bring up painful

matters.”

I sat up to ease the cramp in my right side—one too many knife cuts in those muscles, the last injury deep

and unskillfully repaired. After eight months I feared the painful tightness was caused by internal scarring

and might never leave me. An unwelcome reality for a warrior—even one who has no intent to raise a

sword ever again. “There’s no pain in remembering my father, Mistress Elinor. He was as fine a man as

ever lived. Though farming was not the life he would have chosen, he was well content. I learned more of

true value from him than from any of my more scholarly mentors.”

The tall woman sat back on her heels and assessed me as boldly as any queen. Reddened hands and a

coarse, worn tunic could not hide her mature beauty. Dark, slightly angled eyes, along with lustrous

red-gold skin, were the telltale of her own Ezzarian heritage, though she had grown up far from our

rainswept hills and forests. “It’s just that you speak so little of Ezzaria, Seyonne, and I know the love

Ezzarians bear for their homeland. I thought perhaps it was uncomfortable for anyone to bring it up now

that you’re reviled there.” Elinor was nothing if not direct. Ordinarily I liked that in my friends.

Of course, to call Elinor a friend was presumptuous. We had spent some hours in one another’s

company, talked of the weather and her brother Blaise’s retired outlaw band. But, in truth, we knew

nothing of each other save a few superficial facts. She had once been an outlaw herself, a rebel against

the Derzhi Empire, but was now settled in this lovely valley, where she and her husband fostered a

two-year-old child. I was a sorcerer, a retired warrior of thirty-eight years who had a demon living in my

soul.

“If I were to avoid everything uncomfortable about my situation, I would have very little to talk about,” I

said. I moved down the row again and set another plant. Though I enjoyed Elinor’s company a great

deal, at that moment I wanted nothing more than to lose myself in sweat and dirt and unthinking labor.

Duties were awaiting me, truths to face, some of them terrible and dangerous, some of them more

personally painful; but every day I could put them off and absorb such peace as this green valley could

provide gave me time to be ready.

“My brother says you’ll be executed if you return to Ezzaria.”

“It is no matter. There’s nothing for me there anymore.” I wished she would leave it.

“But—”

I smiled at her, trying to apologize for my poor company. “A man cannot become something his people

have abhorred and feared for a thousand years and expect them to be swayed instantly into acceptance

by his charm and good manners.” Especially when he was having the devil of a time accepting it himself. I

dragged the basket closer and carefully pulled apart a tangled clump of roots and moist soil.

Abomination, my people called me.

“I’ve been trying to decide how to thank you. Words seem so impossibly inadequate. You’ve saved my

brother’s reason… ¦ and our child’s and our friends‘… but at such cost to yourself…”

My skin began to itch. I felt her eyes searching to see the demon that now lived inside me, not an inborn

element of my nature as were the demon aspects of her brother Blaise and the child she fostered, but a

separate conscious being with voice and emotions and ideas of his own

“I have no regrets,” I said. Just worries. Just fears. Just terrifying uncertainty about the future and my

place in it.

Elinor could not know how well she repaid me for my deeds of the previous year. Even as I shifted down

the row and fixed my attention on my work, hoping to escape her scrutiny, I heard the faint music of my

solace from the far end of the valley—a child’s laughter, giggling, bubbling, making the golden noonday

magic. Before very long, footsteps came pounding across the meadow—tiny bare feet on short sturdy

legs, followed by the galumphing boots of someone much taller, someone who was holding back just

enough to keep up the merry chase.

“Da!” squealed the little one as he streaked across the fields toward the sod-roofed cottage tucked into

the edge of the trees. In the cottage doorway stood a large, square-shouldered man—a bearlike

Manganar with brown curly hair and only one leg. He set down a heavy barrel and leaned his crutch

against the door frame just in time to catch the boy and rescue him from the tall, dark-haired man giving

chase.

“Have you outwitted your uncle Blaise, Evan-diargh?” said the one-legged man, rumpling the boy’s short

dark hair. “Have you played the clever fox to his hound, then?”

“He has indeed,” said the pursuer, a spare, large-boned man of thirty. He patted the boy’s back. “I’ve

never seen a mite could run so fast. Especially after we’d been working hard all morning to catch these

few paltry trout.” He pulled a canvas bag off his back. “As it is, I still need to clean them. The boy was

falling asleep on the bank, so I thought I’d best get him home.”

“I’ll wager he’s ready for a bite to eat and a rest,” said the big man, reaching for his crutch.

“Then I’ll take care of our supper and be back in a bit.” With a quick glance and a nod to my companion

and me, the dark-haired man started back across the flowered meadow toward the stream that

meandered through the valley.

The kindly rescuer nudged the boy, who clung to his neck. “Give a wave to your mam, child.” The boy

loosed his grip just long enough to waggle a small hand at Elinor. The child’s dark eyes, their blue fire

hidden only by distance, sparkled happily over the man’s shoulder. With one arm around the clinging

child and the other expertly maneuvering his crutch, the man carried the boy inside the house. A child

could have no safer haven than Gordain’s arm.

I turned back to my work, swallowing the uncomfortable knot of joy and grief, gratitude and loneliness

that lodged in my throat whenever I watched Elinor and Gordain and the child that fate had given into

their care.

“Night’s daughter.” The woman was staring at me, her hands fallen limp and lifeless on her knees, the

blood drained from her strong and lovely face. “How could I have been so blind? All these months Blaise

has brought you here to visit… to help you heal, he told me. I’ve seen you watching Evan… devouring

him with your eyes. But I never caught the resemblance until now. He’s your son, isn’t he?” Her eyes

darted to the shabby cottage. “Why are you here?”

I shook my head, trying to think of what to say. “Elinor—”

“Why would you hide the truth? You and your cursed, wicked, vile Ezzarian ways… You left him out to

die, willing to murder a child because he was born different from you. Because you were afraid of him.”

She wrapped her arms about herself and rose slowly to her feet, her eyes on fire. “And now you’ve

learned that you were wrong to do it. Are you here to appease your conscience? Do you think to make it

up to him that you were willing to let wolves tear him apart? Or did you plan to sneak him away? You’ve

never even touched him. How dare you set foot within a league of him?”

“Mistress Elinor, please—” How could I explain all the reasons I dared not touch him, that it was the

most difficult thing I had ever done, and that only her goodness and her husband’s made it possible?

“I’ve no intention— You and Gordain—” My blundering inability to respond quickly exhausted her

willingness to listen.

“You’ll never have him. Go away.” She spun on her heel and strode toward the cottage, crushing the

newly set plants under her feet.

I jumped up to follow her and cursed the catch in my side that stopped my breath for a moment, as if

Ysanne’s knife were still buried in my flesh. The sun glare dazzled my eyes, making my head throb as I

limped across the rista field. Sweat dripped beneath my coarse linen shirt, and clouds began to gather on

the horizons of my mind. Creeping darkness… With growing misgiving, I halted at the fenced corner of

the goat pen next the house, not daring to go closer. Gordain stood in the cottage doorway, his face

fierce, determined. Pitiful… as if a mortal human could block my way if I chose to summon power. I

gritted my teeth, banishing these hateful feelings that were not mine, though they seethed inside my head

like boiling tar. I forced my tongue to obey my own will, stammering as I searched for the right words.

“Forgive my secrecy. I never intended— I could never—”

But before I could get out the explanation, the storm of rage exploded in my mind, thundering fury that

threatened to split my skull. My hands flexed, demanding to grasp Gordain’s thick neck and twist it, to

hear him scream and choke until the muscles snapped and the bones cracked. My feet were ready to

kick the cripple’s leg out from under him, my hands to snatch the ax on his wall, and my eyes to watch

his face pale as I hacked off his remaining limb.

My hands were shaking as they gripped the fence post, my knees trembling. “Please, get Blaise. Hurry.

I’m so sorry… so sorry…” Only a moment’s hesitation and a blur of green and brown streaked past me.

Shouts faded into the pandemonium of fury and raging death.

Running feet. Anxious voices. “Get in the house, Linnie. Bar the door! I’ll explain later.”

Rumbling… growling… erupting in a roar of madness… The fence post dissolved in fire, and a cloud of

blackness obscured my sight. I was lost…

“Listen to me, my friend. Hold on to my voice. I’ll not leave you. We’re going to bring you back,

Seyonne, and get you away from here safely. I know you don’t want to hurt anyone. Remember who

you are: good friend and teacher, guardian of a prince, most honorable of warriors, loving father This

sickness is not you.”

Determined hands gripped my shoulders, and I wanted to rip them from their puny arms. I bit my lip and

tasted blood, and it gave me strength. I would kill him for keeping me captive. Only his voice—this vile

bondage of calm words and reason—held me in check. As soon as he stopped speaking, I would

strangle him. Snap his neck. Pluck his eyes. Eat his heart.

“Did you see him running? He runs like you, easy and light and very fast. He spent the morning digging in

the sand by the stream and scooping water in his hand to fill up the holes he made. So patient— No,

listen to me, Seyonne, my friend. You are not going to hurt me or anyone. Every time the boy scooped

water in his hand, he spilled most of it before he got it to his little holes. But he would squat down beside

the hole and pour his tiny bit of water in and watch it disappear into the sand. Then he would sigh and go

back to the stream to try again. You see? He is patient like you. How often have you tried to teach me to

cast a vermin barrier? Am I the stupidest Ezzarian ever born? Yet without reproach, you try again and

again to teach me these simplest of skills. You, who can see the patterns in the world, who can unravel

mysteries that no one else can begin to understand. I’ve never known anyone who sees so clearly…”

The man was a fool. I couldn’t see. Everywhere I turned was darkness. Terror lapped at the fires of my

blood thirst and soon became a flood. At any moment I would take that dreadful step where there would

be nothing under my foot, and I would plunge into the abyss. I would become the one I feared… the one

who held sway over my dreams and visions.

But the strong hands did not let go, and the calm voice did not stop. Before long the tide of fear began to

ebb, and I allowed the strong hands and the calm voice to guide me back into the light. “… Apologize. I

thought you were ready for a longer stay. You seemed so much better.”

The world began to come back into focus… a dappled woodland, a dusting of new green on the bare

branches. The smell of damp earth and new growth. A steep angle to the sunlight. A stream mumbling

beside the path, half hidden behind a tangle of willows.

“Here. Let’s stop and have a drink. We could both use it, I would guess. Are you ready?”

Numb, unspeaking, I dropped to my knees where he pointed. The rippling water was cold on my

scarred and bony hand, still soiled from Elinor and Gordain’s garden. I scooped out a handful of the

clear, cold water and scrubbed at my hands, letting the muddy dregs drain into the new-sprung grass.

Splashed another handful on my face, and then another on my neck, cleaning off the sweat of sun and

madness. I looked at the water in my cupped hand and imagined a tiny bronze fist carrying water so

carefully across the sand to a childish enterprise. Evan-diargh—son of fire. Smiling, I drank down my

own treasure and three more besides, and then sat back, leaning my head wearily against a tree.

“You’re getting very good at this,” I said to the dark-haired man who sat cross-legged beside me, having

drunk his own fill of the sweet water. “How long until you tire of preventing mad Wardens from

destroying the world?”

Blaise smiled his crooked smile. “I will do whatever is necessary. So my mentor has taught me.”

“I can’t go back there again.”

“You’ll go back. He’ll not grow up without knowing you. I’ve promised you that already. We’ll just have

to work some more before you do. What set it off this time? Have you had more dreams?”

I ran my fingers through my damp hair and pondered the question. “The same dreams come every night.

Nothing new.” Dreams of an enchanted fortress and a mystery that terrified me. “Elinor and I were

talking about farming. About my father. About Ezzaria. And then you and Evan came…”

“We were running. Were you afraid for him? Was that it?”

“No. Just the opposite. I was so grateful for your sister and Gordain. I couldn’t ask for a better home for

him. No. It must have been something else…” I hated that I could never remember exactly what set off

these attacks—the storms of violence that had riven my soul ten times in the past eight months since the

first one in Vayapol, when three beggars had tried to rob Blaise’s foster brother Farrol. I had come near

killing them all, friends and robbers alike, as if they somehow deserved it by their very act of breathing.

My demon was the cause, I believed. Angry. Resentful. Trapped behind the barriers I had built in some

vain belief that I could control my own soul long enough to understand my dreams and face their

consequences. I was sure this waking madness was my demon’s raging.

But as I searched my memory for the key, I ran across something more immediately distressing. “Oh,

Verdonne’s child! Elinor guessed that I’m Evan’s father. She thinks I’m planning to take him away.

Blaise, you’ve got to go back. I was trying to reassure them, and then I go mad in front of their door.

They must be terrified.”

“Stubborn Ezzarian—seems like I advised you to tell them everything.” Blaise jumped to his feet and

offered me his hand. “As soon as you’re safely asleep, I’ll go back.” We started walking briskly down

the trail, Blaise working the enchantments that took us farther than the number of our steps and true

geography would admit, the sorcery that kept my son’s location hidden from me. Much as I longed to be

a father to Evan-diargh, I could not trust myself with the most precious thing on earth. And even if I were

cruel enough to uproot him from the only home he had ever known, I had no place to take him.

My life as a Warden of Ezzaria, a sorcerer-warrior in my people’s thousand-year battle to save the

human world from the ravages of demons, had almost ended before it had begun, when I was enslaved

by the Derzhi. But after sixteen years of bondage, the Prince of the Derzhi had returned my freedom and

my homeland, and I had taken up my Warden’s calling once again, only to discover that the secret war

we Ezzarians had fought with such diligence for ten centuries was a war against ourselves. The

raikirah—the demons—were not wicked beings bent on destruction of human reason, but fragments of

our own souls, ripped away by an ancient enchantment and banished to a frozen, bitter land called

Kir’Vagonoth. The birth of my son and my meeting with Blaise had convinced me that whatever the

reasons for this ancient sundering, it must be undone.

My child had been born joined to a rai-kirah. Possessed. As it was impossible to remove a demon from

an infant, Ezzarian law demanded that such children be killed. But before I even knew of his birth, my

wife had sent our son away until he was old enough for us to heal. My search for the child led me to

Blaise, an Ezzarian also born demon-joined, a young outlaw of generous heart and inner peace—a

wholeness, a completion, that led me to understand our nature and the terrible split that had occurred so

many centuries before. Blaise taught me what my race and the demons were meant to be, and so I set

out to free the rai-kirah from their exile by unlocking the way to our ancient homeland called

Kir’Navarrin. To accomplish this task, I was forced to put my new beliefs to the test and join myself with

a powerful demon named Denas.

But my own people could not accept what I tried to tell them. A possessed Warden was an abomination,

the ultimate corruption and an unimaginable danger. Once they understood that the change I had

undergone was irreversible, the Ezzarian queen, my own wife, Ysanne, had stuck a knife in me and left

me to die.

As I lay bleeding, I was tormented by visions of a dark fortress that lay deep in Kir’Navarrin. Demon

memory and crumbling artifacts told us that someone powerful and dangerous was imprisoned there.

Fear of this prisoner had caused my ancestors to reive their own souls, to destroy all evidence of their

history, and to lock themselves out of Kir’Navarrin. My death visions, so vivid as to bear the patina of

truth, showed me the face and form of that prisoner—and they were my own. Unfathomable mystery, yet

I believed… I feared… that I dreamed true.

If the prisoner in the fortress endangered human souls, then my Warden’s oath, my training, and my

history demanded that I be the one to confront that danger. But for eight months my dreams had held me

paralyzed, and now, I seemed to be going mad.

CHAPTER 2

Just after sunset Blaise and I came onto a dirt lane on the shabby outskirts of Karesh, a town in the

southern Empire where the remnants of the outlaw band of the Yvor Lukash were working garden plots

and learning trades, waiting to see if their truce with the Prince of the Derzhi would come to anything.

“Do you want to stop and wash?” Blaise paused outside the local washing house, a dank and dismal

shack built around a sporadic little spring of marvelously pure warm water. For a copper coin, the

corpulent proprietor would give you half an hour of access to a pool lined with cracked tile and use of a

towel that had likely not been clean since Verdonne was a mortal maiden.

I sighed and tried to ignore the stink of farmwork and madness. “It would be delightful, but you need to

be on your way.”

So instead we hurried down an alley and up a dusty wooden stair to a room on the third floor of a

locksmith’s shop. There I sat on one of two straw-filled mattresses and munched sour cheese and bread,

while Blaise mixed a sleeping potion. I didn’t trust my own fingers to do it, as if my resident demon might

alter the formula to prevent my safe sleep. I was a sorcerer of considerable power and a warrior of long

experience. If I set my demented mind to murder, it was no simple matter to prevent it. But once I had

slept a sound night after one of my attacks, I seemed to be myself again. Until the next time.

“When will you go to Kir’Navarrin and be rid of this?” said Blaise as he crushed a few leaves and

dropped them into a cup with a spoonful of wine and a few pinches of white powder. “You know what I

was—a raving, drooling idiot, more beast than man. I couldn’t even feed myself, and in less than a day

there… Stars of heaven, even after all these months I can’t explain the difference. To be whole again. To

see clearly, as if someone had popped my eyes back into their proper sockets. Surely it would help

you.”

Confined to the human world, Blaise and the few other Ezzarians born demon-joined had faced a terrible

choice. Their demon natures allowed them to shift their forms at will—a talent those of us born unjoined

had never even suspected. But after a number of years of shapeshifting, their bodies lacked some

essential component to remain stable. A day would come—some sooner, some later—when they would

shift into beast form and be unable to shift back again, quickly losing their human intelligence. I had come

to believe that entering Kir’Navarrin would solve their problem, and it was for this—for my child’s future

and for Blaise, as much as anything else—that I had joined with Denas to unlock the gateway. But I had

not yet passed through the gate myself.

“Your problem was something normal—a natural progression of your life,” I said. “Mine is not. I can’t

risk the passage until I understand what this cursed Denas is up to.”

“The demon is a part of you already,” said Blaise, “joined as you were meant to be. Gods above, man,

you walked your own soul and saw the truth of it—there was no separate being inside you. You’ve told

me fifty times how you long to enter Kir’Navarrin. So go there and be healed before you kill yourself or

someone else.”

I pulled at my hair, as if to let some light and air into the thickness of my head. “He is not me. Not yet. He

sits in my belly squirming, as if I’ve eaten something that wasn’t quite dead. I think he’s the one that’s so

determined to get there”

The golden demon who called himself Denas and I had relinquished our separate lives for common

purpose, and for the few hours it took us to accomplish that purpose, we had reached an

accommodation. But it would have been hard to gauge which one of us had been more reluctant. He had

suffered in a frozen wasteland for a thousand years, believing my people had destroyed his own. I had

been trained to believe demons devoured human souls in unending lust for evil. Neither intellect nor

pragmatism could overcome my sense of violation, of corruption, of certainty that Denas was waiting for

one moment of weakness to enslave my will to his.

I raised the bread and cheese to my mouth and put it down again. I wasn’t all that hungry. “Whatever is

causing these episodes, I daren’t let down my guard. If Denas can drive me to do murder now, what

would I be if we were fully joined?”

Blaise handed me a clay cup, and I downed the purple-gray liquid it contained, followed by water to

drown the foul taste. “You will be the man you have always been. The rai-kirah will bring you memories

and ideas, talents, perhaps new ways of looking at the world. But it can’t be so simple to corrupt a

human soul. Not one such as yours.” He smiled and threw a wadded blanket at me. “You’re far too

stubborn.”

I wasn’t so confident. Even if I dared cross into the demon homeland, there was a finality about passing

through the enchanted gateway—so I had been told. Once that step was taken, Denas and I would be

completely merged, all barriers between us dissolved forever. My visions implied that I was the danger

that raged in Tyrrad Nor, threatening to destroy the world. If I could not control my own hand, my own

soul… That could be the very circumstance that caused the danger. Occasional bouts of madness might

be better.

Five minutes and my limbs felt like they belonged to someone else. As my vision blurred and my head

spun, Blaise donned his black cloak and a slouched hat and blew out the candle. “Joining with the

rai-kirah was the right thing to do. You’ll learn what you need to solve this.”

“One more thing,” I said drowsily as he opened the door to go. “Tell your sister that we did not lay Evan

out to die. I was off fighting demons, and Ysanne… Ysanne sent him to you. We didn’t—either one of

us—want him dead. Not for a moment. Not ever.”

“I’ll tell her everything, Seyonne. Sleep well.”

As a disturbing result of my condition, most of Blaise’s people—even the few like Blaise with inborn

demons of their own— were a bit afraid of me. Certainly everyone respected my privacy. Thus, it was a

surprise when someone burst into my room not a quarter of an hour after Blaise had left. When the

visitor’s feet accidentally kicked over an empty water jar, my descent into drugged stupor was

temporarily suspended. Light flared in my face.

“Spirit’s flesh! Dak was right. You’re still here. I thought you’d gone off with Blaise again.” The intruder,

a short, round- faced man with thinning hair, was Farrol, Blaise’s dearest childhood friend and foster

brother. Farrol, a man neither subtle in action nor temperate in opinion, had been born as well with his

demon nature intact.

“Only a moment and I’ll be safely out of the way,” I mumbled, letting my eyelids sag. My body felt like

river-bottom mud.

“But it was you the messenger wanted. Said it was urgent.”

“Messenger?” I wedged open the gates of sleep.

“Said he’d come from Prince Aleksander. Cursed Derzhi bastard—acted like we were some kind of

vermin. Blaise had only just left, so I sent the fellow after him… and after you, I thought.”

“From the Prince?” I dragged myself up to sitting. Blaise and I had been scheduled to meet with

Aleksander on the day of the spring equinox. But the Prince, bearing the burden of his father’s empire if

not the crown as yet, had sent word that he would have to delay until midsummer. That was still more

than two months away. “What did he say exactly?”

“Said he was to give the message directly to the Ezzarian what was the Prince’s slave, the one, with the

slave mark on his face. Said the message couldn’t wait. Had to deliver it himself.”

“The Prince’s slave… Those were his exact words?”

“Aye. Arrogant, sneering fellow, he was.”

Aleksander would never refer to me as his slave. Not anymore. Not to a Derzhi messenger whom he

would wish to treat me with respect. “Tell me what he looked like, Farrol. His colors… a scarf or a crest

on his shield or his sword or somewhere on his dress… And tell me about his hair. Did he have a braid?”

I reached for the cup of water Blaise had left on the table by my bed and poured the contents over my

head to force my foggy mind awake.

“Looked like any cursed Derzhi. Armed to the teeth. Riding an eighteen-hands bay that Wyther or Dak

would kill for. No scarf, but a tef-coat over his shirt. An animal on it—a shengar, maybe, or a kayeet. I

don’t know. His braid was like any of the arrogant bastards. Long. Light-colored. Tied with a blue… no,

it was a purple ribbon on the left side of his head. Why do you care? What’s wrong?”

I jammed the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to think. “The braid—which side of his head was

it?”

Farrol kicked at the empty water jar. “I don’t know. What does it—?”

“Think, Farrol. You said left. Which was it?”

The round man threw up his hands. “Left, I think… yes. it was the left. That’s how I saw the color of the

ribbon because the fire was on his left.”

Left… spirits of darkness! I staggered to my feet and grabbed Farrol’s arm. “We’ve got to go after

them. Hurry. Help me wake up, and get me a sword.”

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s no messenger. He’s a namhir—an assassin.” And Blaise was leading him straight to my son.

By the time Farrol had poured enough strong tea down me that I wouldn’t fall off a horse, we were a half

hour behind Blaise and the Derzhi assassins; namhirra always traveled in threes. As we raced through the

moonlit woodland, Farrol traversing the enchanted ways as Blaise did, all I could think of were the

murderous warriors venting their fury on Evan, Elinor, Blaise, and Gordain when they realized they could

not fulfill the death vow they had made to their heged lord. Unless Blaise noticed them and shook them

off, they could follow him right through the paths of enchantment just as I did. And Blaise was tired and

worried, and even in the best of times he lacked a warrior’s instincts.

Through the open forest of oak and ash, down into stream-cut gullies thick with willow and alder, over a

rocky ridge. Each time the route was slightly different, enough that even an experienced tracker could not

duplicate it or detect the signs of an earlier passing. By the time Farrol raised his hand in warning, I was

grinding my teeth.

“It’s a direct way, now,” whispered Farrol. “Over this ridge will take you in behind the house. How do

you want to work this?”

I dropped lightly from the horse and yanked my sword from its scabbard. “Circle left and get to the

house through the goat pen. Your task… the only one… is to get the family away.” I gripped his leg.

“Don’t think you can fight these men, Farrol, nor can Gordain or Blaise; namhirra are extremely skilled

and failure is worse than death to them. I’ll try to draw them away.” And then I would find out what in

the name of night they were doing here. “Go!”

I left my horse at the top of the rise, and then crept silently down the dark hillside through a thick stand of

pines. When I was no more than halfway down, orange light flared from the valley and a man screamed

in mortal agony. Piercing the black wall of the night came the terrified wail of a child. Abandoning stealth,

I ran. A dark form lay sprawled on the ground just at the edge of the trees. Blaise… and I could spare

no time to see if he lived.

The cottage was already burning when I reached the base of the hill, and one of the Derzhi was standing

in front of the door, sword drawn. Evan’s whimpering cries came from behind the man. Gods of night, he

was still inside! But I could not take on the door guard, for the other two namhirra were also in view. In

the wavering shadows beyond the fire was a small group—a man huddled on the ground, another

man—the second Derzhi—behind him bending his head back and holding a knife to his throat. The third

namhir, tall, thin, his arms folded calmly in front of his chest, stood in front of the two, barking a question.

The crumpled man responded with a harsh, sobbing curse.

Gordain was going to die. No matter what enchantment I cast or what feat of arms I might be able to

muster, the distance between us was too great. I could not possibly move fast enough to halt the knife of

a namhir.

“They will live, Gordain,” I cried, offering the good man the only gift possible as I sent my dagger

spinning through the night to catch the door guard in the heart, and then raced the heartbreakingly long

steps to plunge my sword into the second namhir’s back. As I yanked the blade from the lifeless Derzhi,

I glimpsed Farrol’s stocky form streaking from the woods toward the burning house. I had no choice but

to trust him to do what was needed, for the third assassin drew his sword and attacked.

“The sorcerer slave himself!” he cried gleefully as he met me stroke for stroke. “Flushed you out like a

hungry kayeet.”

I had fought few humans in my career as a warrior—my opponents had always been the monstrous

manifestations of demons—but I learned quickly that the namhir was among the most skilled of his kind.

Simple illusions—itching, boils, crawling spiders—would not disrupt the focus of such a killer. He knew I

was a sorcerer. And my son’s terrified wailing fed my anger so sorely that I could not allow myself the

time for more impressive, and thus more difficult, workings. I had to rely on my sword and my fists.

Once, that would not have been a problem— I was very good at what I did—but the badly healed

wound in my side was proving treacherous. Every time I raised my sword, my right side felt as though it

were tearing open.

I tried to back the warrior into the fence of the goat pen, but he seemed to have the lay of the farm

imprinted on his mind. Just before I had him trapped, he ducked and rolled and leaped to his feet behind

me. I pressed him again, toward the flames, ripping my blade across his chest. Not deep enough, for he

did not falter. Rather he worked me sideways toward the new-plowed field, hoping, no doubt, to tangle

my feet in the soft earth. I whirled about and landed my boot solidly in his back. He stumbled, but did not

Carol Berg - Restoration

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