Shapes and stories fixed in the night sky; a sword and a book. Braethen thought of the irony, his own life ruled now by the stuff of legends, myths. Near his left hand rested the sword given him by the Sheason, near his right, one of Ogea’s books. There was room enough in the sky for both, but would he be big enough to reconcile the two disparate elements that warred in him? Braethen put tentative fingers to each—both reassured him, both appalled him.
“By Will may I find a way,” he whispered.
Soon light shone strong enough to see by; and no sooner had it done so than Mira returned.
“Take up your sword,” the Far said.
Braethen looked a question at her.
“Don’t force me to ask you twice, sodalist,” Mira said, a slight edge in her tone.
Reluctantly, Braethen took the sword in hand, holding it awkwardly. Mira led him to a flat clearing. As he followed the Far, he cast furtive glances back at the fire.
“You seem to fear the sword,” she said, still facing away from him.
“This sword,” Braethen corrected.
“And why this one in particular?” she asked. “Is it different from other swords you have wielded in battle?”
“I have been in battle but once,” he answered, aware of the Far’s deliberate choice of words. He had longed to raise his hand and claim the sword sewn in the crest on his garment, but he feared that he lacked the nobility he had attached to the emblem. He’d sworn to it, but the darkness he’d experienced when taking the sword in hand still haunted him.
“Nonsense,” Mira countered. “You have been in battle many times, it is only the instrument of the sword that you have used but once.” She drew one of the blades she wore on her back and ran a finger down its edge. “Is it physical conflict that you fear?”
Braethen considered the question. Many times he had raised his hands in his own defense or in the defense of another. It was not an activity he relished, but neither did it cause him fear.
“No,” he answered. “I cannot explain it. I’ve little experience with weapons, and the wars have not touched the Hollows in my lifetime.” He looked at the edge of the sword he held, the dark surface catching the light of early morn. “But this blade is … unique. It is more than metal.”
“Oh?” Mira said. She turned to face him. “And why is that?”
Why such games? You and the Sheason hold answers you are unwilling to share with others. His face felt hot in the cool air of dawn. “Because,” he began, then did not finish.
“I see,” Mira replied, a mix of condescension and disappointment in her voice.
“No, you do not!” Braethen yelled. His explosive outburst surprised him as much as it did the Far. But he could not stop what came next. “I took the oath. I believed in the stories, that the Sodality honored what was best about the Sheason, standing beside them to record and remember, to place themselves in the way of whatever risk. It is part of the oath to take up weapons of war if it is needed, to brandish steel and leather and bone and mind to safeguard the keepers of the Will.”
Mira shifted her stance, her gaze fixed on him.
His breath came fast and shallow, the silver rays of daybreak streaking the clouds of angry exhalations that billowed from his lips. “But I did not know the cost. I was naive. I idealized the tales of heroism, the banner, and even wars so old that they are unremembered in the minds of men. And now that I have taken hold of steel and lifted it in conflict, however right or necessary, I have found myself in darkness.” His breath faltered, catching in his chest, and he went on in a softer voice. “Will and Sky … deep, eternal darkness. No sound could I make, no thought could I hold, as if I was swallowed in the belly of a great beast out of the Bourne. I was gone to nothing, and in keeping what I swore to, had nearly lost all that I am.”
Braethen cast a scathing glance at Mira. “Is it so with all who first draw a weapon of war? Or perhaps it is me, and I am a small, foolish scholar who belongs in the Hollows instead of carrying the scrolls of a dead reader into the east.” He raised the sword. “Or is it this weapon? And should I crack its shaft across the nearest stone because of the well it cast me into when I took it up?”
Mira stared back at him, her face stony. Vaguely, Braethen was aware that the Sheason stood nearby, listening, watching. The Far shared a look with Vendanj, then stepped closer to Braethen, her steady gaze at once strangely reassuring and frightening.
“Listen closely, sodalist, and remember these words.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “The darkness is all these things. Taking up a weapon to end life is a black business. Better it would be if all those who lifted the sword fell into the place you found yourself. There is more than a little comfort in knowing that the potential in your arm and weapon causes you disquiet. If it were otherwise, I should have left you in the Hollows.” The Far looked at Braethen’s hands, which shook as he held the sword Vendanj had given him.
“But it is much to do with the sword you carry. It is not mere steel. Much of what it is will occur to you in its use, and more will the Sheason teach you. But I will show you how to hold the weapon, how to keep another from tearing it from your grip, and how to use only what energy is necessary to meet an attack. In time you will hold it steady, and see its edge and end without looking at it.”
Braethen tried to stop his trembling fingers. But as he considered her words, his shaking would not be stilled. “I do not want to grow familiar with such a thing,” he finally said.
“I spoke nothing of familiarity, sodalist,” Mira answered. “You should never make yourself a cousin to death. But now more responsibility is yours, so more is expected of you. To help you meet that expectation, I will teach you things you must know. Now lift your blade and we will begin.”
Braethen stole a glance over his shoulder. Vendanj still watched, his eyes sober in the light of sunrise. What will he show me about this thing? Braethen wondered as he began lifting the sword in his quivering hands.
For an hour, he repeated movements and grips, his and the Far’s swords glinting almost playfully in the rays of another day.
But when they’d finished, Braethen still felt dejected for having unwittingly called the sword’s power in his sleep.
The Sheason appeared next to him and pulled his wooden case from beneath his cloak. “Don’t waste your energy with guilt and regret for what is done, sodalist.” Vendanj took a leaf from the case and held it toward him.
Braethen looked at it with reluctance.
Vendanj raised it higher in offering. “Take it.”
Trying to peer within the Sheason’s hood, Braethen leaned forward and accepted the leaf.
“What is it?” He turned the thin, dark green leaf over in his palm, studying it closely.
“It was harvested from the Cloudwood two summers ago.”
“But it is fresh,” Braethen said, unbelieving.
“It is a resilient tree, sodalist.” Braethen thought he saw a look of deep sadness within Vendanj’s cowl. “Do you know it?”
“It is written of in the histories. Some pages call it the Eternal Grove, saying its roots have woven the land itself. Others say it is the wood to harvest for our gallows, where the last trial will be held and punishment swift.” Braethen looked up from the small leaf. “But these accounts were compiled from diaries and the oral tradition of reader’s tales stretching over ages we cannot even name. Some of them were written in the hand of my father himself.”
Vendanj nodded. “The oldest stories come with interpretation. It is the price we pay to preserve them. Put the leaf upon your tongue. I will tell you of its origin.” Vendanj exhaled and looked skyward. Braethen caught a clearer look of the Sheason’s pale cheeks and brow. The man was aggrieved, yet indignation flamed in his eyes.
“The name is right,” he began. “It is the Eternal Grove. Its leaf and stem and branch were among the first in creation, drawn from the purest and most enduring elements. Its height is magnificent. Poets have had to test the limits o
f their craft to describe its grandeur. Its strength is unmatched even by iron and steel, and it takes a hundred years for its trunk to increase by just one growth ring.
“The Cloudwood stands at the end of the Saeculorum Mountains, at the edge of creation, its roots growing into the abyss, claiming form and substance from the mists there, creating earth where none existed, forcing the land to expand.”
“Would it not have overcome all the world then?” Braethen asked.
Vendanj smiled dryly. “The weave of the root is slow. It adds, and in time some of our world passes away. The process occurs too gradually for us to mark, but as the earth is made new, so, too, is it eroded and washed to silt in distant places, in the west near Mal’Sent and on a hundred other shores across the oceans.”
Braethen put the leaf on his tongue, letting it rest there. He did not know what to expect, and for several moments nothing happened. It was simply a leaf after all. Then sweet nectar flooded his mouth. The leaf dissolved and Braethen swallowed hungrily. In an instant his aches subsided and whatever self-doubt remained in him faded to nothing. A quietude and calm came over him, and he felt as though he’d rested for a week.
A curious smile crossed Vendanj’s face as the sensations made their way into Braethen’s body. The sodalist imagined that he must look like a child tasting his first molasses stick.
As the taste lingered on his tongue, Braethen marveled at the effects of one small leaf. “Why do you share this with me now?”
“Do you think me selfish, sodalist?”
“That is not what I meant. I—”
Vendanj held up a hand and led Braethen to the small rise he’d been standing on moments before. Cresting the rise, Braethen found himself staring out over a blackened plain.
“The Scarred Lands,” Vendanj said.
This was why the Sheason had shared the life-giving leaf. Looking out upon it, Braethen felt hopeless.
* * *
Vendanj rode ahead, descending into the vast plain. Braethen followed him onto the dark soil, which reminded him of soot.
A smell like dead candlewick assailed him, and all around an empty stillness surrounded them, more desolate than the despair of Widows Village. The land was nearly devoid of all life. Only the hardiest sage grew, and that sparsely. Fissures yawned like sores in the arid expanse of sand and hard-baked stone.
Small wind dervishes licked at the earth, tugging at brown grass that bristled with their passage. The sun pounded down as though drawn to the land, which cracked like a vast dry seabed.
“What caused this?” Braethen asked, hearing the consternation in his own voice.
Vendanj waved Braethen to his side. “The War of the First Promise lasted close to four hundred years. It was not constant battle. Years of peace would pass with little threat from the Bourne. But then the Quiet would surge again. And so generation after generation watched their fathers go to war. The activities in schoolrooms focused on combat strategy, whatever knowledge could be had of the Quiet, and the production of clothing and arms. For nearly twenty generations, literacy belonged only to those children whose mothers sang the teaching songs and read to their young. Women created the implements of war and bore the men that would wield them. Before the war was over, they were known as the Wombs of War. On the fields, the fruits of those wombs lay unrecorded, unremembered as the procession of war marched on.”
Braethen lifted his face to the sun, wanting to both honor the dead and clear his mind of the images the Sheason’s words created.
Vendanj took a drink from his waterskin and continued.
“Despite all the people could do, the Quiet came, driving families from their homes. Refugees flooded every safe town and city. Food shortages caused riots. As people strove to survive, the streets filled with every kind of unsavory practice: prostitution, slavery, gambling. City arbors began to reek of the unbathed, granaries were ravaged, livestock purloined to feed hungry mouths.
“It went on like that for nearly the entire span of the First Promise. So it was that at the end of the fourth century of war, when the largest legions out of the Bourne were reported to be marching on the world, one of the Wombs of War ascended the palace stair at Recityv with a newborn babe.”
Braethen mouthed her name: Anais Layosah. They had seen Penit play this rhea’fol not a week ago.
“For three days Anais Layosah called for the formation of a council of nations to answer this threat. King Baellor heard her, dispatching birds and riders to the other remaining independent nations. And by sunset on that fourth day, a proclamation was read calling for appointments to a convocation.”
Braethen’s heart quickened at the tale of Layosah holding her child aloft and decrying a king and the noble elite to which he pandered. He had read a different ending to that tale, though, one of pity for the infant.
“Appointments were made from every quarter of society. Dethroned kings, leaders of cities under attack, all took a seat. These rulers committed every last man and weapon to the amassing of an army to march against those cutting a swath into the nations of the south, a force numbering two hundred thousand. But it became clear that steel alone could not put down the Quiet or drive them back to the Bourne. Scouts reported the presence of renderers and other creatures of nightmare from beyond the veil. When King Baellor heard that dire news, he went to Maral Praig, randeur of the Order of Sheason, asking him to violate the oath of the order and commit his followers to the use of force, to war. Baellor convinced Praig, and the army that marched west from Recityv to the blare of brass horns grew by four hundred Sheason.”
Vendanj pointed to the land around them. “Into this place they came, sodalist. It was here they met the Quiet, here that the War of the First Promise was decided. Baellor’s army was outnumbered four to one. Wave upon wave of the Quiet descended into the plain. Baellor knew he could not fight a war on many fronts, so he commanded his line to form a great circle, leaving no flank.
“At first, only flesh and steel clashed on the plain. But soon, Velle lifted their hands to the sky and called terrible fire and wind and lightning to smite Baellor’s army. They drew the great power of life from the world they sought to own, from the earth upon which their enemies stood. Their drain upon the land was massive, stripping it of life and vitality, color and scent, the very marrow of the world, leaving the land an utter waste.”
Vendanj looked about him.
“But the Sheason refused to draw upon the land or others to exercise the Will, so they exhausted their own Forda at an alarming rate. Journals record Sheason giving unto the last, expending their spirit until nothing remained to give.
“The battle raged on for eight days. The Quiet sought a way through Baellor’s line. The army of the First Promise fought a final battle in that great ring. There could be no escape, and Baellor’s circle of defense shrank through attrition.
“It was then that Maral Praig, First Servant, gathered his fellows together at the center of the great round. While the remnants of Baellor’s army held the line, the Sheason stood together, each one joining hands with the Sheason next to him. In an attitude of prayer, the Sheason bowed their heads, and Praig uttered a soul-rending cry that filled the entirety of what would become the Scar. A light flared with the magnitude of a thousand suns, and with it, every man with the stewardship to direct the Will, Sheason and Velle alike, fell.
“In three days, those Quiet that were still alive retreated. And across the dry, dusty land lay the stain of blood like an artist’s spillage. Ten thousand men still stood when the Quiet vanished into the north. Here”—Vendanj swept his arm across the horizon—“the stench of the dying filled the air, and the heap of Sheason forms in their long, dark robes lay like a benediction on the Battle of the Scar.”
Vendanj cast his gaze from left to right, finally looking back at Braethen. “It is an ugly wound, sodalist, but one that reminds us of the cost of freedom from the Quiet.”
Braethen gazed across the barren landscape. Beneath the s
mells of dry sage and grass lingered a smell like dirt from a burial cave. But there was something more. Ever since they had come into the Scar, the quality of light, of movement, seemed strained. A lethargy permeated the place, like the broken spirit of a man. And as the sun rose over the vast inhospitable waste, it grew hot and oppressive.
When Braethen sensed that the Sheason had finished his recounting, he asked, “All this time, and still so little grows here?”
Vendanj took a deep breath of the dry air. “Some have tried to cultivate crops in the Scar. They’ve given up. The Forda is gone, drawn into the bodies of Quietgiven to replenish their life’s breath ages ago. It is a mark upon the land, a reminder, a remnant of violent thoughts and deeds. This place will yield none of the promise inherent in the world beyond it.”
“A promise forgotten by most of those who trod upon it,” Mira said, loud enough to be heard but not so loud as to become part of the conversation.
Braethen took Vendanj’s silence as agreement with the Far’s comment.
“If it cannot be healed or changed,” Braethen asked, “then why do we ride directly into it?”
Vendanj regarded him, and first asked a question. “Your books, sodalist, they did not prepare you for this, did they?”
Braethen looked again into the bleak land around him. “No,” he finally answered, “they did not prepare me to see the scale on which life might be snuffed out by the actions of those who render the Will.” He gave a furtive glance at the Sheason. “The dark soil is stronger testimony than that written on the pages of my books.”
Vendanj seemed satisfied by this answer. But Braethen’s mind churned with the horror that what he saw around him could be the fate of the world beyond the Scar.
Then the Sheason finally answered Braethen’s question. “We seek out the man Grant, who lives in the Scar.”
Someone lives here? Braethen shuddered at the thought.
The Unremembered: Book One of The Vault of Heaven Page 36