Carol Berg - The Bridge of D'Arnath 3 - The Soul Weaver

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THE SOUL WEAVER
Book Three of
The Bridge of D’Arnath
Carol Berg
For Mother
In the Lists of the Dar’Nethi are tallied the full number of the Talents: Singer, Builder,
Silver Shaper, Tree Delver ... They are named without interpretation of their worth and without
report of their rarity, for who is to say that the common Builder, who sings his bricks into the
harmonious arch that pleases a thousand eyes every morn, is of any less value than the Word
Winder, who creates an intricate enchantment that only a few can use to any effect? D’Arnath
himself was born to be a Balancer, a most ordinary gift, but it was magnificence of his soul that
made him a Balancer of Worlds.
Yet there are three rare Talents that cause a hush to fall among the people when they are
named. One is Speaker, for the gift of discernment and truth-telling is rarely welcomed, and
those who practice it are never other than alone.
The second is Healer, for of all things, life is the most sacred to the Dar’Nethi, and the
youth or maid who accepts the gift of life-giving is both blessed for the glory of the calling and
pitied for the burdens of it.
The third is Soul Weaver. Some say there has never been a true Soul Weaver, for who could
relinquish his own life so completely, taking unto himself the fall body, mind, and spirit of
another being—lending strength or courage, skill or knowledge—and then be able to yield the
other soul undamaged? Who could do such a thing and himself remain whole? Some say the
Soul Weaver should not be entered in the Lists. It could be no part of the Dar’Nethi Way, for it
is an impossible calling and only a legend amongst a people who are themselves the stuff of
legends.
Ven’Dar yn Cyran
“A Brief History of the Dar’Nethi Way”
PROLOGUE
Karon
My senses were deafened by Jayereth’s pain. Desperately I fought to maintain my control,
to prevent her agony from confusing my purpose. We were bound by an enchantment of
healing, our mingled blood linking our minds in the realm of flesh and spirit. If I shut out the
experience of her senses, then I was powerless to heal her, but if I could not quiet her enough to
see what I was doing, she was lost just as surely. Dark waves already lapped on the shores of
her life.
Jayereth, hear me ... Hold fast ... for your daughter, newly born to grace your house ... for
T’Vero who cherishes you ... for your Prince who is in such need of your service ... With
everything I knew of Jayereth I commanded her to hold quiet—just for the moment it would
take me to see what I needed to see.
She understood me, I think, for there came the briefest ebb in the death tide, an instant’s
clearing in the red mist of her pain and madness that let me perceive a host of things too terrible
to know: ribs smashed, lungs torn, blood ... everywhere hot, pooling blood and fragments of
bone, her belly in shreds ... Earth and sky, how had they done this? It was as if they knew every
possible remedy a Healer could provide and had arranged it so I could do nothing but make
things worse.
Another instant and I was awash once more in Jayereth’s torment, feeling her struggle to
breathe with a chest on fire and a mind blasted with fear. I could not give her strength or
endurance, only my healing skill and a few pitiful words of comfort. But even as I fought to
knit together the ragged edges of her heart, her last remnants of thought and reason flicked out.
Her screams sagged into a low, flat wail ... and then silence. I had lost her.
Let her go, I told myself, you can’t help her by traveling the only road she has yet to travel.
That road is not for you ... not yet. Forcing aside the wave of enveloping darkness, I gritted my
teeth and spoke the command, “Cut it now.”
My companion cut away the strip of linen that bound my forearm to Jayereth’s and allowed
our mingled blood to feed my sorcery. The cold touch that seared my flesh was not his knife—
his hand was too experienced for that—but the sealing of a scar that would forever remind me
of my failure in my young counselor’s last need.
The red mist vanished and the death tide, and my bleary eyes focused on the ravaged body
crumpled on the stone floor of my lectorium. The only sound in the candlelit wreckage of the
chamber was my shaking breath as I knelt beside my fallen counselor and grieved for the horror
she had known. Cross swiftly, Jayereth. Do not linger in this realm out of yearning for what is
lost. I’ll care for T’Vero and your child. On D’Arnath’s sword, I swear it.
I envisioned Jayereth as she had been, short and plain, with brown hair, a liberal dash of
freckles across her straight nose and plump cheeks, and the most brilliant young mind in
Avonar tucked behind her eccentric humor. When I summoned Jayereth’s young husband,
T’Vero, I would try to keep this image in mind and not the gruesome reality.
“Was there nothing to be done, my lord?”
Two small, strong hands gripped my right arm and helped me to my feet. Bareil always
knew my needs. Unable to speak as yet, I shook my head and leaned on the Duke’s sturdy
shoulder as he led me to a wooden stool he’d set upright. Padding softly through the wreckage,
he summoned those who huddled beyond the door.
One by one the four remaining Preceptors of Gondai crept into the chamber, gaping at the
devastation. The oak-paneled walls were charred, the worktables in splinters, the shredded
books in jumbled heaps. No vessel remained unshattered, no liquid unspilled; every surface
was etched by lightnings more violent than those from any storm of nature’s making. The acrid
smoke of smoldering herbs mingled with blue and green vapors from pooled liquids to sting
noses and eyes. Most fearful, of course, was the corpse sprawled in the midst of the
destruction—Jayereth and the rictus of horror that had been her glowing face.
“How was it possible, my lord Prince?” one whispered.
“Who could have done this?”
“In the very heart of the palace ... ”
“ ... treason ... ”
The word was inevitable, though I didn’t want to hear it.
“ ... and her work, of course ... ”
“All lost,” I said. I had known it in the instant I’d heard the thunderous noise.
Jayereth’s discovery should have been secured the previous night. I was her Prince. It had
been my responsibility. But selfish desires had lured me into a night’s adventure, and so I had
put off duty until this morning. Too late. Before I could protect Jayereth or her work, our
enemies had ripped her apart and left no place for me to heal.
With a furious sweep of my hand, I cleared the tottering worktable of chips of plaster and
broken glass, then kicked the splintered leg and let the slate top crash to the floor. Only when
the dust had settled again had I control enough to address my waiting Preceptors. “Search every
corner of the palace, every house, ruin, and hovel in the city. No one is to leave Avonar. Ustele,
you will watch for any portal opening. We will discover who dares do murder in my house.”
Useless orders. Useless anger. No common conspirator had wrought such destruction fifty
paces from my bedchamber. The protections on the palace of the Prince of Avonar were the
most powerful that could be devised. For a thousand years no enemy had breached these rose-
colored walls, and no Dar’Nethi thought-reading was required to understand what every one of
the wide-eyed Preceptors saw. No soulless Zhid had slain Jayereth—no lurking stranger. The
murderer was one of us.
Bareil went to summon Jayereth’s husband. The Preceptor Gar’Dena, a giant of a man
resplendent in green silk and a ruby-studded belt, brusquely dispatched the other Preceptors to
the duties I had detailed. When Gar’Dena and I were left alone, he looked down at Jayereth.
“Has there been any disruption in the Circle? Any sign from Marcus or the others? This event
leaves me wary of all our enterprises.”
I shook my head. “No ill word from the Circle.” As far as we knew the Lords had not yet
noticed our most powerful sorcerers taking up positions on the boundaries of the Vales, ready
to form an expanding ring of impenetrable enchantment around the healthy lands of my
adopted world. “As of yesterday, Ce’Aret had almost two hundred in place. And we’ve had no
news of our agents in Zhev’Na, but, of course, we’ve no way to know if they’ve been taken.
Maybe that’s what this is—the notice of their failure.”
We both knew it wasn’t so. The elimination of Jayereth and her work was no blind strike of
retaliation, but clearly aimed. Someone knew what she had discovered and knew that she’d not
yet passed on all of her knowledge. Only six people in the universe knew the secret—and to
any one of them I would entrust my life.
Gar’Dena lowered his massive bulk to the floor and with the gentlest of hands straightened
Jayereth’s tortured limbs. With a plump finger and a soft word, he smoothed her face into
peace, masking blood and charred flesh with a delicate tracery of illusion. “She was just the age
of my own Arielle and destined to be the greatest Dar’Nethi sorcerer in a thousand years. Ah,
my lord, I could not comprehend it when you pulled her from my gem shop and raised her so
high in your councils. When you showed us what you’d seen in her, I wept at my lack of
vision. Which of us is vile enough to have done it?”
I rested my back on the charred wall and rubbed my aching head. “If I knew, that one would
already lie dead at her feet.”
There had been a time when such words coming from my mouth would have caused me an
hour of self-reproach, of castigating myself for abandoning the ideals of my youth, the tenets of
my people that said there was no gift more sacred and more untouchable than another’s life.
But justice, too, was an ideal worth serving.
Gar’Dena bore Jayereth from the study in his thick arms, laying her in the palace
preparation room as if she’d been brought in from outside. Our custom required us to let the
dead lie undisturbed for half a day, lest the departed soul find its way back to its body before it
crossed the Verges into the afterlife. But no one could be allowed to know the assault had taken
place in the heart of the palace, not before we discovered the culprit. The news of such
penetration by our enemies would cause panic. And I already knew that Jayereth wasn’t
coming back.
I remained in my private sitting room, slumped in a chair doing nothing until Bareil tapped
on the door to let me know that T’Vero had arrived. A short, sturdy man, painfully young, his
eyes wide and wary at this early summoning, followed the Dulcé into the room. “My lord
Prince,” he said, bowing halfheartedly. “Where is my wife? She never came home last night.”
I did as I had to do, grieving with the young husband at Jayereth’s side until he had taken
into himself the wholeness of his sorrow. After giving him my promise, as I had Jayereth, that
their child would want for nothing I could provide, I left him alone to stand vigil with her.
When the time was completed, he would take her away.
My belly sour, my eyes like sandhills, I returned to my study to await the reports of my
Preceptors. The Preceptorate was a body of the most talented, most powerful sorcerers in
Gondai, charged with teaching and guiding our people, including their sovereign, in matters of
sorcery. In effect, the Preceptors served as my council of advisors in everything of true
importance. Treachery and cowardice had left four of the seven seats vacant when I had taken
up my duties in Avonar four years ago. Taking the time to learn my way around the politics and
personalities of Gondai, I had filled only two as yet. Now one of those was vacant again.
Over the next hours each of the remaining four came to me to report that nothing could be
discovered of unwarranted entry into the palace, of surreptitious enchantments or openings of
portals that could allow a villain’s escape. I did not scrutinize the content of the reports so
much as each messenger, looking for the nervous twitch or the cast of an eye that would tell me
where I had been wrong.
First the acid-tongued Balancer, a woman who had given ruthlessly in the war against the
Lords of Zhev’Na for seventy years, sacrificing her family and home and exhausting her
physical strength.
Then the irascible old Historian who never took his piercing eyes from my hands, judging
their works by the exacting standards of Dar’Nethi history and his own peculiar view of our
destiny, whose open distrust and unyielding criticism dismissed any belief in hidden treachery.
Next the exuberant giant of a Gem Worker whose meaty hands had held the fragile secret of
my safety and Seri’s while I was imprisoned in Zhev’Na, the faithful steward whose stubborn
strength had held Avonar together until I returned.
And last, the newest of my counselors, the unpretentious Word Winder who could create the
most complex enchantments from the nuances of spoken language, the gentle teacher of the
Way, the friend who could challenge me to a debate about the ethics of healing and then in the
next breath set me laughing at a bawdy song.
The door of my private sitting room clicked shut behind Preceptor Ven’Dar, leaving me
alone. A breeze whispered through the open casement, stirring my hair as I sat staring at the
white lights that blossomed through the city in the deepening blue of the summer evening.
Crowds of people in jewel-colored garb filled the streets, calling greetings and laughing at the
merry enchantments of street entertainers, laughing, even after a millennium of war in which
nine-tenths of our world had been ruined and three-quarters of our population had perished or
been enslaved. Always before, even on the most difficult of days, I had been able to find solace
in the beauties of my new home and the strength of my people. Not on this night.
On the mirror like surface of a small table next to my chair sat a red lacquered box. Only
Bareil and I knew what lay inside the box: a small triangular pyramid of black crystal, set in a
plain iron ring. Simple enough. Yet its simplicity belied its history. At the age of thirty-two I
had been executed—burned to death, the penalty for being born a sorcerer in the mundane
world beyond D’Arnath’s Bridge. But before my soul could cross the mysterious boundary we
called the Verges, the border between this life and the life that follows, the Dar’Nethi sorcerer
Dassine had reached out with his enchantments and ensnared me, binding me to this simple
artifact until he could return me to life in the body of his violent, soul-dead prince. Now, my
finger’s touch upon the black stone’s surface would release me from this body I’d been given
and transport me to the realm of the dead where I belonged.
Unbidden, my hands took the red lacquered box that held my mortality and turned it over
and over, my thumb rubbing the smooth simplicity of its lines. What life I had was a gift, given
not to correct the misfortune of my too-early death, but in hopes that I might find some way to
heal a universe ripped apart by evil. I already had ample reason to question Dassine’s belief
that I was capable of such a task. Now, things had grown far worse. Here was a simple
dilemma, and I would have given a lifetime of sleep not to have to consider it.
Treason. Murder. I could not attach the words to any of the four Preceptors. Not even a
Word Winder as skilled as Ven’Dar could do that. But unknown to my four counselors, I had
shared Jayereth’s news with two others, and it was the thought of that indiscretion that threw
me into such great agitation as I gazed into the failing light of this villainous day. The
Preceptors didn’t know of my venture across the Bridge the previous night, when loneliness
had sent me running to Seri for a brief, sweet hour. Thus they didn’t know I had told her of
Jayereth’s news. Yet their respect for my extraordinary wife was so great that they would never
touch her with a trace of suspicion. Even Ustele and Men’Thor, who constantly reproached me
for my “unseemly attachment to these uncivilized, untalented mundanes,” spoke of Seri with
admiration.
But neither did my counselors know that I had spoken to the very person who had allowed
Jayereth’s talent to take wings. In the heart of the Lords’ fortress, he had freed me of my slave
collar, and in that single act of redemption made possible the solution that could free every
Dar’Nethi slave. But the Preceptors would not understand that I had entrusted Avonar’s deepest
secrets to my son, he who had been, even for a few hours, Dieste the Destroyer, the Fourth
Lord of Zhev’Na.
Unforgivably, irretrievably stupid ...
CHAPTER 1
“Ce’na davonet, Giré D’Arnath! You’ll dance at my daughter’s naming day. I bring you the
key!” Jayereth, late again. She danced into the council chamber, the garish beads that dangled
from her hair, her neck, and her waist clacking as she whirled across the stone floor on her toes.
I could feel Ustele’s hackles rising. Jayereth scandalized many of the elder Dar’Nethi, who had
not yet recognized the wisdom beneath her youthful irreverence.
“And what key is that?” I felt unremittingly dull, perhaps because I’d been sitting in this
Preceptorate meeting since breakfast. Men’Thor had just left the chamber after sitting all day in
the row of six auditors’ chairs, here again at his father Ustele’s invitation. Between them they
had added another six hours to their four years of argument that my plan to defeat the Lords of
Zhev’Na without bloodshed could never work.
To successfully counter an eminent Historian and a silken-voiced Effector who could make
the most outlandish schemes sound as simple as planning a trip to market required more
muscular debating skills than I possessed. Many people urged me to appoint Men’Thor to one
of the vacant seats on the Preceptorate. But I suffered nightmares of having the father at one ear
and the son at the other.
“You really must attend our meetings on time, Preceptor Jayereth,” snapped Ce’Aret.
“Happily, we’ve just begun our regular order of business.”
Not so happily. That meant we had at least three hours of minutiae still to discuss. My mind
had been wandering across D’Arnath’s Bridge for half the day, conjuring the gleaming
impertinence of my wife’s brown eyes and the throaty richness of her voice. It had been far too
long since I’d seen her ... months. I needed to bury my face in her sweet breast and let her
remind me again of who I was and what perverse path of fortune and duty had decreed we must
remain so far apart.
Ignoring Ce’Aret’s admonition, Ustele’s glare, and Gar’Dena’s and Ven’Dar’s amused
stares, Jayereth twirled once more, halting just in front of my chair, teetering on her toes until I
thought she must fall into my lap. But she settled to her feet, pushed away the bead-woven
brown curls fallen across her eyes, and swept a graceful bow, stirring the stale air of the stone
council chamber with the scent of ginger soap. “I’ve brought the key to unlock the chains of
your people, my lord! Is that not what you commanded me? No Dar’Nethi need fear the seal of
Zhev’Na ever again.”
At last her words penetrated my daydream and caused me to pay attention. “Mordemar ... ”
“ ... has no power over any who wear this.” She dangled a tiny silver medallion from her
fingers on a fine silver chain that chinked lightly as she teased my eye. “It can be embedded
into armor, or jewelry, or inset into a boot.” The slip of metal she dropped into my fingers
might have been a sliver of ice, setting my every hair crackling with frost, every pore stinging
with life and health—monumental enchantment.
The key, indeed! I’d sworn that no Dar’Nethi would wear the slave collars of the Zhev’Na
one moment longer than I could prevent, and the companion vow was to rob the Lords of the
mordemar they used to seal the collars, the vile material that stripped a Dar’Nethi of the
substance of his soul and with it all power for sorcery. And against all advice and expectation, I
had entrusted the search for an answer to this thoroughly unconventional young woman.
“You’ve found the countering enchantment.”
“Give me a fortnight, and I’ll refine the working until no metal is required. Let me show
you.”
Like a whirlwind reshaping the landscape, Jayereth laid a crucible filled with gray powder
and two thin, battered straps of metal side by side on the council table. As the other Preceptors
gathered close, a burst of invisible fire from the young woman’s hand caused the powder to
slump into gray sludge. Even after four years, the stink of it wrenched my gut.
“Now watch. Feel.” She poured the molten mordemar from the crucible into the narrow
space between the two strips of metal as if to seal the closure of a slave collar. The liquid fell in
thick, soft plops, spreading quickly as it touched the surface of the table, dissolving the steel
edges of the collar and filling every bit of the space between. In moments it had hardened to a
dull gray ridge. I closed my eyes and felt its vile enchantment swell into a dark knot in the path
of life, a wretched blight that was the death of power and hope for the unlucky slave.
“Now touch it with the medallion.”
Swallowing the memory of despair, I opened my eyes and laid the slip of silver on the
hardened seal. As if the chamber walls around us had yielded a great sigh, I felt the dark
enchantment unravel, dissolve, and swirl away. The gray seal disintegrated, leaving naught but
two ugly strips of metal and a patch of dust.
“Magnificent!” bellowed Gar’Dena over my shoulder. “Great Vasrin’s hand, girl, you’ve
done it!”
Ven’Dar fingered the metal and the dust, sniffing it, tasting it. His smile grew slowly and
when he looked up, his gaze met mine straight on. “Marvelous.” No other words were
necessary. He knew what this meant to me.
“We must think carefully about this,” said Ustele, hobbling back to his seat, one hand raised
in warning. “We can’t just—Such a weapon. This news must stay amongst us. Secret. Until we
decide how to use it.”
“Balderdash!” said Gar’Dena. “Proclaim it to the world. Let the Lords know their time is
fading.”
“Well done, Preceptor,” said Ce’Aret, her withered cheeks flushed, her fist clenched.
Ce’Aret had lost three sons, two daughters, and her only grandson to the Lords of Zhev’Na and
their warrior Zhid, four of them taken into slavery as she watched from the walls of Avonar.
“Of course you can’t be babbling the formulation about the city. We can’t have the devils
restructure the making of mordemar to counter your formulation. As Ustele warns, we must be
careful and thoughtful.”
“Did anyone assist you?” I asked, awed at the enormity of Jayereth’s accomplishment. Yes,
caution was certainly in order. “Have you told anyone? Written it down?”
“No, no, and not yet.” Grinning delight danced across her countenance. “I wanted to
surprise you, lord Prince. You’ve seemed out of sorts of late.”
“No insolence, young woman!” But I grinned back at her, knowing she spoke truth.
Four years of unrelenting duty had been dragging at my spirits, leaving me snappish and
dull and feeling sorry for myself. For weeks I had been promising myself a venture across the
D’Arnath’s Bridge to steal a few hours for my own need, and the only thing that had enabled
me to sit through this day’s tedium was my vow to go this very night no matter the Preceptors,
the Lords, or the end of the world.
But this discovery changed things, of course. I ran my fingers through my hair trying to
focus on duty and quell the resentment rising in my gut. One of Gar’Dena’s daughters was ill.
Ven’Dar was due to take the evening inspection on the city walls, a duty that would take hours.
Neither Ce’Aret nor Ustele had a moment’s patience with Jayereth and both were asleep with
the pigeons on most evenings. We dared not spread the news to Zhev’Na, but the surest way to
secure Jayereth’s knowledge was to share it amongst ourselves. “This meeting is over. I’ll go
with Jayereth, so she can show me her—”
“No need to shepherd me, my lord,” said Jayereth, bundling her materials into her arms.
“I’ve already started copying my notes. If Mistress Ce’Aret will excuse me from the rest of the
meeting, I’ll promise not to leave the palace tonight until warded transcripts are safely in each
Preceptor’s hands.”
“Good ... yes ... that should do.” I grabbed on to her solution. Of course it was better that she
commit her information to paper so we could all know it. I could be back by the time she
finished her transcriptions.
Jayereth bowed to the four Preceptors, and then sank to one knee in front of me, her plain
face alight with triumph. “By midsummer every Dar’Nethi in Avonar will know how to make
one of these. We’ll have them free, my lord. Every slave shall be free.”
As she hurried out of the room, Gar’Dena and Ustele continued to argue about how we
should handle the news. The debate grew more strident by the moment, its premises all too
familiar.
“Just stop!” I shouted. “Enough for today. Go find yourself some dinner, keep the
information to yourself, and think carefully about it. Make sure Jayereth knows where you can
be found so she can deliver her transcripts. We’ll continue this discussion and all our other
business tomorrow.”
“I would speak with you about this matter as soon as possible, lord Prince.”
“No, Ustele. Not tonight ... I’ve other things to do.”
“Where will you—?”
“It is none of your concern. We’ll discuss it tomorrow.” I was in no mood to be lectured
about the frivolous expenditure of my time or my reckless usage of the Bridge that was
“designed to keep the universe in balance, not to enable family visits.” I left the old man
muttering.
Without stopping to wash, shave, change clothes, or even grab the gifts I had selected
months ago for my next visit, I ran down the stairs and passages into the deepest heart of the
palace, walked through the warded door that would open only for me, and stepped through the
wall of white fire and onto D’Arnath’s Bridge. Two hours or so for the crossing, and I would
be with Seri.
摘要：

THESOULWEAVERBookThreeofTheBridgeofD’ArnathCarolBergForMotherIntheListsoftheDar’NethiaretalliedthefullnumberoftheTalents:Singer,Builder,SilverShaper,TreeDelver...Theyarenamedwithoutinterpretationoftheirworthandwithoutreportoftheirrarity,forwhoistosaythatthecommonBuilder,whosingshisbricksintotheharmo...

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