Carol Berg - THE SOUL WEAVER

He had made his decision on the night at the Lion’s Grotto, when he linked our minds together with his healing magic. His voice had been gentle at first, just as I remembered him, my true father. He told me of Ven’Dar’s belief that I was a Soul Weaver, so that what I’d done to Paulo and Ven’Dar had been no more a sign of my corruption than Ven’Dar’s word windings or his own healings. Though I was glad to hear him say such things, instead of how vile I was or how much he wanted me dead, I didn’t believe their theories. I knew what I was.

As he explored what I knew and believed of the Bounded, and the story of my dreams and all my confusions, he was appalled at what he considered his failure with me. Unforgivable that I couldn’t see, he said. That I let it come to this pass. I should have been at Verdillon more often, and perhaps I could have come to understand what happened - and what was happening - to you.

Whenever he grew angry, I had to distract him, for his touch became less sure, and his presence less substantial, and I very much wanted his help. But he came very quickly to the conclusion that there was no way to detach me from the Bounded. His first slight attempt at separation seemed to leave a gaping hole in my memory where someone named Ob was concerned, and my father said there would be nothing left of me if he proceeded, with no accompanying assurance that the Lords couldn’t use me anyway.

Then Paulo must go back to the Bounded, and lead the Singlars through the portal to Valleor, I said. I prepared them before I left. They just await my word.

It would give King Evard a greater mystery than he’s ever known, but unfortunately, I doubt these Singlars will fare better in the Four Realms than to chance their fate with you. That was my father speaking, so I knew he was still with me.

Roxanne will see to them, I said.

You care for these people a great deal.

I just… I would not have them die because of me. They’re not evil.

Neither are you, Gerick. You never were. If this new world is a reflection of you, then you must see that it is not just the oculus that defines what you are, but the goodness and strength and resilience of the Bounded, as well. This ocean of light… what a wonder… that, too, is a part of you.

It was then he told me he needed to learn more of how the Lords controlled me. Perhaps something other than my death could disrupt their attachment. He asked me to open the door in my mind.

I didn’t want him to see. If he could be D’Natheil while he looked, instead of my father, perhaps I wouldn’t care. There’s nothing you can do, I said. Just give Paulo a day, then do what you have to do. It’ll be too dangerous if you start poking around in my head. They’ll know.

But he told me how important it was to him and to my mother that we look for every possible solution. And if we were to find another answer, he needed to know everything - what I was and what I had been. What I had always been.

If I allow it… you won’t tell her? I don’t want her to know.

I promise. She knows your true heart, Gerick. She’s always known, and nothing will ever change her mind. No one in any world can match your mother for stubbornness. But there’s no need for her to know everything that’s been done to you. Whatever is between us here, will stay between us.

All the words were very nice. He seemed to mean them. But I had no illusions about what would happen when I opened the door and introduced him to Dieste.

Indeed, it was all he could do to stay with me. Rage and revulsion threatened to destroy my father and leave only D’Natheil, who very much wanted to stick a knife in my gut. Instead, he withdrew from my thoughts for what seemed like a very long time. When he spoke again, his inner voice was cold and hard, and I could hear only words, nothing of his intent or his true feelings any longer. You were right all along. You have to die. There is no other course. Nothing more about me not being evil. He had seen the truth - why I would rather die than go back.

There’s always satisfaction in having your judgment confirmed by those deemed wiser than yourself, and to have the decision made was a relief. But I had thought he might tell me how he would go about it… or that he’d make it fast… perhaps even what it was like… after. As it was, he did not speak again before withdrawing from me completely.

I opened my eyes to see him wrapping a rag around his bleeding arm. Paulo stood in the doorway of the ruin looking worried, and Roxanne was nowhere in sight.

Events moved very quickly after that. I told Paulo he had to go back to the Bounded. He knew what that meant, and he promised to “see to things back there.” The Prince had taken his place by the door and stood looking out, as if we weren’t even there.

Paulo squatted beside me, tracing a finger in the dirt. “It don’t seem fair,” he said, quietly. “I never thought he’d do it. Never.”

I glanced at my father’s motionless back. “He tried to find another way. Honestly, he did. Take care of yourself, Paulo.”

I appreciated that Paulo didn’t try to convince me to run away. We had already discussed this back in the Bounded. Though he didn’t want me to die, he had no alternatives to offer. But he shook his head. “It’s not over yet. Don’t you think it. The Lady’ll have a say about this.”

“Where is she? Is she all right?”

“She’s - ”

“Get out of here, Paulo!” The Prince moved quickly, yanked on Paulo’s arm, and shoved him away from me. “One instant more and you’ll reveal your passage to our guests.”

Pounding hooves from across the valley announced rapidly approaching riders. Ten or more.

Raising a hand in farewell, Paulo passed through the portal again - little more than “thinking himself through” the protrusion of rock in the heart of the ruin. I’d forgotten to ask him about Roxanne.

My father did not speak to me as we waited for the riders to arrive. Knowing what he had seen inside me - and knowing what was going to happen a day from now - I didn’t know what to say to him, either. Certainly nothing I said was going to change his mind about what he had to do. So I just sat in the corner and waited, wondering who was coming, wondering whether he would give Paulo the time he needed to save the Singlars, wondering whether he would use his sword or his knife or some enchantment to kill me.

The “guests,” Radele and his father Men’Thor and some of their men, were all for executing me right there in the ruins, and from the way the Prince talked, I thought he was going to do it. But then he told them that he was planning to make a public show of naming a successor and executing me, so that the Dar’Nethi would see clearly what was happening. So, they made me a prisoner instead, putting me in restraints that would prevent me using power.

When I thought of all those I’d sealed into slave collars, I couldn’t complain about their bindings. The spell-ridden silver manacles that made it feel as if bars of red-hot iron had replaced the bones in my arms and back weren’t half so bad as the slave collars. But I thought it strange that my father would do such a thing to me, when I’d freed him from his collar in Zhev’Na. That irony must have been on his mind as well, for when I was tied to the horse, and he came up to put his own seal on the magic, he wouldn’t look me in the eye. And at the very moment his enchantment ripped through my mind and body like a flaming ax, I would have sworn I heard him whisper, “Forgive me.” But I was screaming, and after that I couldn’t think of anything for a long time.

Over the next day and night I kept telling myself I was a fool even to think about my father any more, much less believe he had some plan that might keep me alive. Yet those two words kept popping into my head every time I saw him. He brought one group of bloodthirsty, superior Dar’Nethi after another to gawk at me, and he’d tell them how corrupt I was, and how I’d tried to murder my mother. But then he’d call up D’Arnath’s magic again, the white fire that made me want to crawl out of my own skin, and I couldn’t put two sensible thoughts together.