These duties done, I was at a loss. I dared not leave the Prince. In his current state, a child with a wooden sword could take him down, and death and dangers still threatened from every side. That something marvelous had happened in this place was indisputable, but it seemed a fragile victory.
“Blast and perdition, what’s gone on here?” Kellea stood in the arched doorway, staring at the white fire, the four prostrate forms, the unmoving Prince, and the bloodstains that streaked the lovely tiles like some macabre child’s artwork. “Seri, are you all right?”
I must have looked wretched: soggy, bedraggled, and spattered with mud and blood. “I don’t know.” I had experienced every possible emotion in the past hours and could no longer tell one from the other.
“I felt… well, I could tell something had happened, so I had to come up.” Kellea moved from one body to the next, peering into their still faces. A longer look at the Prince. “Where’s the boy? He was determined to help. I couldn’t keep him back.”
“Paulo…” I peered through the fog, the knot in my belly eased almost as quickly as it formed. A slight body was huddled against the outer wall. The mist drifted by, revealing a thin, freckled face, a portrait of wonder as the boy stared up at the fiery Gate.
“You’re all right, boy?” Kellea and I both breathed easier at his wordless nod.
“What happened here?” She turned her attention to the still forms around us. “Are they dead?”
I tried to gather words. “This one”—I laid my hand on Tomas’s still form-—“is the champion brought by the Zhid to be slain—my brother. They drove him to madness. To his death. The Prince couldn’t save him. The three who were Zhid live, and I believe that when they wake they’ll no longer be Zhid.” The soaring fire filled my heart and dried my tears. “He healed them. And somehow the power of his enchantment—his healing gift—turned the Gate fire white… so he must have strengthened the Bridge, too, I think. He gave everything… and I don’t know what the consequence of that might be. He may not have enough life left in him to wake again.”
“He will awaken if I have anything to say in the matter. And if there is a breath of life left in him, he will remember you, Lady Seriana.”
I would not have wagered an empty box that I had enough strength left to move, but when the voice boomed at us from the direction of the Gate, I grabbed the Prince’s abandoned dagger and leaped up from the floor, standing between the unmoving D’Natheil and the intruder who limped out of the curtain of white fire, leaning on a wooden staff. He was a short, muscular man dressed in a shabby brown robe that gaped open to reveal a wrinkled white tunic belted over scuffed brown breeches. His curly hair and beard were brown, streaked with gray, but a youthful visage made his age quite unguessable. Nothing was at all remarkable about the man, save for his intensely blue eyes and the incredible voice that rang with wind, thunder, poetry, and wickedly prideful self-confidence. I dropped my weapon. No mistaking him. “Dassine.”
“Indeed, I am he that you name,” said the man who walked out of the wall of fire. He bowed to Kellea and me, but his eyes were only for D’Natheil. “If you will excuse me…” He limped across the chamber and tenderly lifted the Prince’s haggard face, examining it intensely. D’Natheil’s eyes were open, but whatever he saw was far distant from that room. He demonstrated no awareness of Dassine, or me, or anything around us. “Oh, my dear son,” murmured the sorcerer. “All I believed of you… How right I was.” He pulled off his brown robe and laid it around the Prince’s shoulders. “Rest now, and we’ll care for you as you deserve.”
He stood up slowly and leaned on his staff. “It will be some time before he can do anything but maintain his own existence, but I believe he will be fine.”
“And he will know who he is?” I said.
“Not today”—Dassine heaved a great sigh—“nor tomorrow. Not for a goodly time. But he’ll know. One day he will laugh, and ride his great horse, and grow enchanted roses for you in the middle of winter. As I told you.”
“Then I’m right. He is…” I could not pronounce the name aloud, lest by the single word my hope would shatter itself on the bulwark of impossibility.
“Oh, yes. In this body lives the soul you know as Karon Lifegiver. It is neither dream nor self-delusion.”
I could not speak.
“Some remnant of D’Natheil will always remain with him, but eventually it will seem neither strange nor uncomfortable. He will never look like himself, of course. His body is D’Natheil’s and that will not change though it appears he has taken on something closer to his own span of years.” Dassine laid a hand on the fair hair threaded with gray.
“How is this possible?”
“Mostly because of Karon himself—his strength and will and unparalleled love for life. His is a prodigious gift. Luck, too, has played its part, as have I—and you.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s a long story.”
“I can’t stay for stories,” said Kellea, who stood stiffly next the doorway. “Graeme—”
“Heaven and earth, the sheriff!” I said, guilty that my own desire had displaced thoughts of the injured Graeme Rowan. “Master Dassine, our good friend lies injured downstairs…”
“And what has that to do with me?”
“You’re a Healer, are you not?”
“I’m the most gifted Healer that lives, but I do not spend my talent lightly.”
His arrogance pricked like a thorn in the shoe. “I’m well aware of the cost of healing,” I said. “And I don’t ask lightly. A friend is dying from fighting your war.”
“Hmmph.” The sorcerer wrinkled his brow. “I suppose I must look at him.”
“He’ll want no help given unwilling,” said Kellea, snarling. “I’ll care for him myself.”
“No, no, you misunderstand.” Dassine waved one hand dismissively. “I don’t begrudge the man. But it’s been my practice never to spend my power on minor matters, and I’ve no strength to spare today. But if your friend is so desperate a case, I’m quite willing to see to him. I’ll warn you, though, young woman, that this cursed leg makes me damnably bad at dodging pursuers.”
“I think I can get you there safely,” said Kellea, choking on her fury. “There are only three frightened Leiran soldiers wandering about the cavern.”
“I’ll go then. You’ll watch over him?” said Dassine to me.
“I will.”
With every moment I spent near the Gate fire, I felt stronger, as if my blood drew sustenance from its glory. It was good that Karon was here.
At least an hour had passed by the time Dassine limped back into the room. “The good sheriff is resting. He will be healthier than he ever was and will very likely never appreciate it properly. The girl has stayed with him, and the ragamuffin boy.” With tenderness that belied his grumbling pomposity, he felt the Prince’s wrist, laid a hand on his temple, and peered into his vacant eyes. “It will still be a while until he can move. You want to know how it was done, I suppose.”
“I want to know everything.”
Dassine traced a circle in the air with his walking stick, and then, astonishingly, unfolded the ordinary looking limb of wood into a stool with a woven seat. He plopped himself onto it with a sigh. He didn’t explain his bit of magic nor offer me any comparable accommodation.
“I was in the Chamber of the Gate on the day your husband died,” he began. “The glory of that day was unimaginable, beyond hope, and the monstrous stupidity that followed was nearly our undoing. I think Exeget sent young D’Natheil to the Bridge early to destroy the evidence of his own monumental failure.
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