Carol Berg - Guardians Of The Keep

First I had to decide where we would meet. Large as it was, Comigor Castle provided few places where I could receive visitors unobserved. Privacy was a rare commodity in a great house. I had only just persuaded Nellia not to come walking through my bedchamber door at any hour as she had when I was a little girl. But my bedchamber was hardly suitable. I wasn’t sure whether Karon would even remember me as yet. Dassine had said he would have to “take him back to the beginning” to restore his memories. It was all so strange!

I considered the battlements. No one went there but me, fair weather or foul, but despite the emerging stars’ promise of fair skies, the bitter wind still howled from the wild northlands as fiercely as the wolf packs of famine years. And the snow lay deep on the surrounding countryside, so I couldn’t ride out.

One other place came to mind. Located on the eastern flank of the keep, where morning sun could warm the stone, was a walled garden, wild, neglected, locked by my father on the day my mother succumbed to her long illness. Once the garden had been thick with flowers and herbs native to the far southeastern corner of Leire whence my mother had come at seventeen to wed the Duke of Comigor. The customs of Comigor, a strictly traditional warrior house, allowed a bride to bring only one of her father’s retainers to her new home, and my mother had chosen, not her personal maid or some other girlish companion, but a gardener. The poor man had spent eleven years fighting Comigor’s bitter winters and hot summers to reproduce the blooms and fragrances of his lady’s balmy homeland, only to be sent away when she died because my father could not bear the reminder of her.

For many years after her death, I had climbed over the wall to read and dream in the peaceful enclosure, watching the carefully nurtured plants grow wild and die away like a fading echo of my young girl’s grief. Now I held the keys to the house, and with them the key to my mother’s garden, a place deserted, secluded, and most importantly, invisible from any vantage point within the castle.

Unable to sleep for my anticipation, I wrapped myself in a cloak, let myself through the garden gate, and strolled among the bare trees and shrubs and the sagging latticework of the arbors. The Great Arch of the stars still lit the darkness like a reflection of D’Arnath’s enchanted Bridge.

I didn’t question that they would come. “At the sun’s next rising,” Dassine had said, “at whatever place you are.” If I’d told anyone in the world what it was that I anticipated so anxiously as I awaited dawn in my mother’s garden, that person would have thrown me in an asylum. I wrapped my hand tightly about the pink stone, allowing its heat to warm my freezing fingers.

The sun shot over the garden wall, causing me to blink just as a streak of white fire pierced the rosy brilliance. Squinting into the glare, I spied a short, muscular man, who leaned on a stick as he hobbled toward me along the gravel path. His white robe flapped in the breeze, revealing a rumpled shirt, knee breeches, and sagging hose. Dassine. Alone. Bitter disappointment welled up in my throat. But when the sorcerer raised his hand in greeting, I glimpsed another figure. That one remained at the far end of the path, almost lost in the fiery brightness. Tall, broad in back and shoulder, he too wore a white robe. A white hood hid his face.

“Good morning, my lady,” said Dassine, his breath curling from his mottled beard like smoke rings. Though tired lines surrounded them, his blue eyes sparkled. Gray-streaked brown hair and beard framed his ageless face like a striped corona. “Am I never to find you in a warm place? This weather makes my bones brittle. One snapped limb and you will never be rid of me!”

“There aren’t many private places here.”

He craned his neck to survey the pile of ancient rock that was my home. “Indeed. I am astounded to discover where you have settled yourself. Is that not your brother’s pennant?”

“It’s a long story.”

“And you’re not particularly interested in dwelling on such trivialities while my companion stands at the far end of the path alone. Am I correct?”

I was near bursting. “How is he? Does he remember-?”

“Patience! I told you it would take time. Do you remember my condition for bringing him?”

“That I must follow your instructions exactly.”

“And you still agree to it?”

“Whatever is best for him.”

“Precisely that. Sit down with me for a moment.” He plopped himself heavily on a stone bench. I sat beside him, but my eyes did not stray from the distant, still figure in white.

“You are not a prisoner here?” said Dassine.

“I’m here of my own will and have full freedom of the house.”

“Your brother’s house seems an odd place to welcome the very one who caused the black flag to fly over these battlements. Is it safe?”

“Safe enough. I’d never endanger either one of you. Only one old woman here causes me any discomfort, and I can deal with her. I’m only here because I came upon an opportunity to repay my brother for all that happened.”

“Just so. Well, then… we have made progress. Over the past four months I have given the Prince the memories of his youth-both of them. He remembers his life as D’Natheil up to his twelfth birthday, when he was sent to the Bridge the first time. I don’t think I can take him farther than that, for as I told you, the disaster on the Bridge left little soul in D’Natheil. It’s as well. Karon doesn’t need to know more of what D’Natheil became in those next ten years. Sufficient that he knows of D’Natheil’s family-his family-and Avonar, and most importantly, he knows of the Lords and the Zhid, the Bridge, and his duty as the Heir of D’Arnath. I think he will be able to pass examination if it comes.”

“Examination?” Gondai, the world that lay across the Bridge, was such a mystery. I knew only bits and pieces about the Catastrophe-a magical disaster that had destroyed nine-tenths of their world-and the ensuing centuries of war between the Dar’Nethi and the Lords of Zhev’Na.

“D’Natheil’s body has clearly aged more than these few months that have passed since he came to you last summer. If the Preceptors have doubts about the Prince’s identity, they will examine him to determine whether he is truly the son of D’Marte, and thus the rightful Heir of D’Arnath. His physical makeup will be examined, and his patterns of thought will be read and matched to those of his ancestors. The tests will question knowledge and conviction, flesh and spirit.”

“So he must believe he is D’Marte’s son.”

“Exactly. For him merely to accept that he was Prince D’Natheil at one time is not enough. He must live as D’Natheil, as well as Karon, now and forever.”

“And what of his other life?” His true life, as I thought of it: his childhood in Valleor, his education at the University, his years in hiding, his scholarly posts, our meeting, our marriage. And then the horror that had ended it all: arrest, torture, burning, death… until this man beside me had snatched his soul before it 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.