Focusing again, he said, “Make haste, lads. Don’t dawdle. This season may end sooner than you might imagine, and if it does, it will come with desecrations we can only imagine. Don’t be a party to it by failing in this simple commission. The Quiet are still very close, so I will head west for a time, traveling obvious roads, burning bright fires, and singing loudly at every step to draw undue attention, before proceeding to Recityv. You follow the river north. Make no fire, stay beneath the shadow of the leaf. If you can see the river blue, you are too close to it. In a few days, you’ll come to an old overgrown road. Any other time, I’d tell you to follow it west to the main road north.” The scrivener shook his head. “But not this time. Follow the road east back to the river. There you’ll see a grand old bridge arcing toward high cliffs. That’s the way for you. It’s an old road, a forgotten way. But the Given won’t look for you that way, either. Take care and you’ll be all right.”
Tahn could feel the scrivener holding something back. “Where are you sending us?”
Edholm motioned them close and whispered so softly they almost couldn’t hear him. “It is a very old city, very old.” He looked them each in the eye. “Take care and you’ll be all right,” he said again.
As an afterthought, the scrivener reached for one of the books at his belt. He tore out several written-upon sheets, and rolled them as he had done the others before stuffing them inside yet another stick, this one larger. “Take this with you, as well. Those to whom you present the sticks will be glad of its reception.”
Edholm fell silent, his aspect weary. “I am but a scrivener, boys. I have loved my days recasting what has been, laboring over it with bone and muscle, carrying forward in time the simple and dear words that authors in the tradition have given us.” He lifted a quill and spun it slowly between his fingers. “There are other methods of producing the words, but none that imbue the text with all the depth of soul and intention set out in the first seasons of man.”
Shaking himself from his reverie, the scrivener looked a last time at Tahn and Sutter. “It is an imperfect plan, but likelier to succeed than three untested men leaving together to outfoot the Quiet.”
Edholm was right, and even if he had been wrong, it would have done no good to try and convince him otherwise. Tahn sensed that the scrivener had written upon his scroll things that Tahn and Sutter had not put to their own: a last testament to his life because he didn’t believe he’d ever reach Recityv.
“Should Will and Sky smile at once, we may meet in cleaner air, and I may take your hands to show my thanks.”
The scrivener extended one hand, which Tahn took willingly. With his other hand, Edholm traced a circle around his and Tahn’s thumbs. Without another word, the scrivener set out through the still smoking trees and spared no backward glance.
“Whew,” Sutter exclaimed. “I don’t know what to make of that little fellow.”
Tahn stuffed the sticks into an inner pocket of his cloak. “Really … I thought he was your brother.”
Bandying a series of similar retorts, they retrieved the horses and marked a northward course. They soon reached the river and resumed their journey under the cover of the tree line not far from the river’s edge. Until evening they traveled, speaking low, Tahn occasionally clutching the sticks inside his cloak to assure himself that they hadn’t worked themselves loose.
In the twilight, ignoring the scrivener’s admonition, they agreed to a small fire and warmed their meat and cheese together over bits of stale bread.
Smacking his lips with delight over the makeshift supper, Sutter asked, “If the cycle turns and there is no one around to witness for us at our Standing, do we still pass into manhood, the fullness of alchera?”
“You won’t,” Tahn jibed. “I think ‘manhood’ is rather picky about who is allowed in.”
“I see. And you feel confident that ‘manhood’ has a place reserved for a hayseed whose only manly activity is shooting helpless animals.” Sutter chortled through his food.
“I think I’m in line right ahead of the clodhopper whose closest friend is a worm.” Tahn threw the last bit of his fusty meal at Nails. Then he thought more seriously. “I don’t know. I’d always thought Balatin would Stand for me. And when he went to his earth, I chose Hambley.” He adjusted a log on the fire. “I don’t think we’ll be home in time for that to happen. I guess one way or another we’ll get older.…”
Sutter brushed his hands together and drew up his blanket. “Not me, Woodchuck. I think I fancy that if we never Stand, we never age. Imagine an endless lifetime of trackers, scriveners … and women.” He winked at Tahn and rolled over to sleep, leaving the first watch to Tahn.
In moments, long, slow breaths rose from Sutter as he went to his dreams. Tahn leaned back against a fallen tree and looked up through the darkness toward the lesser light, his thoughts turning to Mira: A woman who looked his age, but who seemed to have lived a lifetime of experience; her reserve; the latent skill and energy in her arms as they rested near her sword. Something did seem ageless, timeless, about her.
Removing his neck wrap, he rubbed at his wounds. Despite the foulness so recently pursuing him, Tahn lost himself in reverie of an imagined life with the Far. The responsibility of the sticks, the ache in his foot, the guilt of his inaction over Wendra’s child, all receded if for but a moment as he thought about possibilities.
* * *
They rode a full day, speaking little, each caught up in his own thoughts. Evening meal and night watches were more of the same. On the morning of the second day after leaving Qum’rahm’se, they broke through to a road choked with foliage, high grass growing in the middle, nearly obscuring the wheel ruts. Tahn angled east toward the river, stems brushing his legs and the bellies of their mounts. In the breeze, the air filled with seeds blown from river cottonwoods shedding their plumes. The soft fall of the light, downy seeds seemed to assuage the urgency that had been growing in him to safeguard the messages entrusted to him by the scrivener.
The ripple of leaves rustling together in the wind like the rush of whispers reminded Tahn of the Hollows, and he relaxed in his saddle. Slowly, the sound of running water grew. The dappled light gave way to an open sky above them as Tahn and Sutter suddenly found themselves at the edge of a bridge arching up to span the river.
Neatly cobbled stones mortared together with clay and sand made up an elegant overpass. The bridge was bordered by balustrades and supported by stout pilings of seamlessly fitted larger stones. The architect had invested great care in fluting the masonry posts that rose at even intervals to the flat stone ledges on both sides of the bridge. Beveled edges marked the ledges themselves. The stone, darkened from long years of river moisture and sun, stood stately in the morning light.
Grasses grew over the foot of the bridge, some taking root in the cracks where wind and water had eroded the mortar.
Across the river, the bridge dropped to the base of a sheer cliff, a chasm there opening like a rift in a risen plain. Suddenly, Tahn wondered if the chasm had been built to service the bridge or the bridge to service the chasm.
Sutter, giving Tahn his cavalier smile, started across the bridge. The clop of hooves on stone seemed loud, causing Tahn to swing his head about like a thief wishing not to be heard. Reluctantly, he followed his friend.
The great arching bridge ended at a stone gate. Sutter pushed on it with his left hand. The huge block did not move.
“Your assistance?” Sutter requested in a sarcastic tone.
Tahn rode to the gate and together they pushed. The gate gave, slowly. A moment later they had opened it far enough to pass beyond.
Sutter hesitated a moment.
“Scared,” Tahn mocked.
Sutter’s smile broadened. “You’ll remember that I was the one who pegged Anais Polera in the ass when she turned to flee our root attack.” With that, Sutter went in.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
More Scars
Mira had been to the Scar
once before. She understood its secrets and silences. Not as well as the Sheason, whom she believed could hear in the dust the voices of those fallen ages ago in a final act of defiance against the Quiet. And not like the man Grant, who lived here. But the way of it haunted her the way the Soliel Stretches did when she walked their vast tracts alone, save that here, the reminders were far more bitter.
Mira knew this time her visit to the Scar would bring more painful memories. She knew it because of the recent arrival of a raven bearing a message from Naltus. She knew it also because the Children of the Soliel all shared one common childhood misfortune. As she considered that misfortune, she remembered when she realized how hard it was to have more than one mother.
* * *
“I don’t understand,” Mira said. “I thought you said you were my mother.”
She stood in the warmth of her home, going over basic movements she’d been taught. Only arms and feet so far; she was only four. They’d get to start practicing with weapons the next turn of a cycle. As she repeated the forms again and again, taking correction from her mother, they spoke. This was her favorite time, because her mother, Genel, always taught Mira things while she was practicing the basic movements. Her friends didn’t seem to have the same kind of relationship with their mothers.
“Mira, you need to listen closely. I am your mother because I am taking care of you right now. But I did not give you life. The woman who brought you into the world was called Mela. She fulfilled her call in your first year.” Genel cautioned that her foot was too far back for proper balance.
Mira corrected her stance. “What does it mean to fulfill her call?”
“When a Far reaches the age of accountability, she is called home, into the next life. This is the honor given us for our stewardship. We will never have to taste the fear or pain of reckoning for stains of word or deed. It is a great blessing.”
“It’s a blessing to go to the earth so young?” It confused her. Mira naturally thought that doing well meant the reward of pleasant things, not something like dying.
Her mother interrupted Mira’s next movement, and took her face in her hands. “Yes. You must understand. We protect a very important knowledge. To do so means we must be willing to do anything necessary to keep it safe. And that will sometimes mean doing something that seems wrong to you. But understand,” she said, commanding Mira’s attention, “that in the service of our oath, nothing is wrong. And so when our life is done, we go unblemished.”
Mira looked back, understanding dawning in her young mind. “But accountability is when you have eighteen cycles. Does everybody die then?”
“If they are Far, they do,” Genel said. “Though we are given the full turn of our eighteenth year.”
“How old are you?”
“I have seen eighteen turns of the sun, Mira. I will go into my next life in but a few months.”
Mira began to cry. “I don’t want you to go. Please. Can you stay? I will be very good. I won’t beat up on any of the boys anymore.”
Her mother smiled. “As long as you don’t really hurt them.” Then she wore her serious face, her teaching face. “Mira, this is who we are. You will have many mothers in your life. And they will all love you and take care of you. And then one day, you will take care of a young Far. And then you can tell her it’s okay to beat up on the boys.”
Mira didn’t smile. “I don’t want to. I just want you to stay. I don’t want any more mothers. One is enough. Just until I’m old enough to be by myself.”
Her mother held her close and hugged her. And rocked her. “One day, you may even have a child of your own, Mira. It is such a blessing when that happens. Especially for you, because you belong to an important family for our people. And then you’ll be happy to know that when your time comes, there will be able and willing Far to take care of that child, just as I am doing for you.”
Mira shook her head. “But then the only way she’ll ever know me is because someone else told her my name. And we’ll never be able to sing the Soliel songs or Run the Light as you and I do, because I will be gone before she is old enough to do those things.”
The woman who called herself her mother tried to hug her again. But Mira didn’t want her hugs right now. She didn’t want to love Genel anymore, because she was going to die and give her to another mother. And she couldn’t understand why this was a blessing. So she ran. Ran out the door and into the city and moved as fast and long as her small body would allow her.
Why do I have to be a Far? she thought. Just train and learn and fight and … die. What if I just want to be a mother and keep being one?
* * *
As the memory receded, Mira stood from her vigil and sprinted into the Scar night, running with every whit of speed with which she, as a Far, was endowed. The rushing night air cooled her skin, but could not calm the troubled thoughts in her mind.
There was life and love and duty. For a Far these were supposed to mean the same thing. But somewhere in her youngest childhood had been sown the thought that perhaps they needn’t be. And while the broken hopes of that four-year-old girl had never healed—could never heal, because she was after all, Far, and always would be—she had made peace with her own brief, childless life.
Until her sister died.
Mira didn’t know how long she’d been running when she arrived back at camp. The heat of the day had receded, leaving the night air pleasant—not cold enough for a fire. The sodalist lay asleep, fitfully dreaming. The Sheason sat awake in the dark, looking northeast toward where they hoped to find the exile they sought.
“You should rest,” she said, and sat on the ground opposite him. “This may be one of the few places the Quiet will hesitate to follow. I’ll keep watch.”
Vendanj said nothing for some time. When his eyes finally left the dark horizon to find her own, he said, “Does running help you forget?”
Mira had shared the Sheason’s company for too long to be surprised at his ability to divine the inner concerns of those around him. Still, she was guarded. “And what do you believe I run to forget?”
“Your sister. The mantle she’s passed you by her death. The struggle with childhood—yours, and your people’s.” His eyes seemed sad as he said it, though she had the impression the sadness was not for her alone. “This place,” he went on, “it causes us to remember. And for you and I, my friend, remembrance is not cheerful. But neither let it cause you despair. Coming through this place, bearing our memories … it is a good test for what may come.”
Mira stared back, saying nothing.
“It is hard, though, isn’t it?” Vendanj said. “Especially when feelings stir inside you for the boy.”
It would be pointless to deny it, nor did she feel inclined to do so. “It has no bearing on what I must do, or why I came,” she said.
Vendanj showed a wan smile. “I know, Mira. But be careful that in spending so much time with me, that you do not become too much like me. Your future may be short, but it is worth living. Don’t let anything, even a Sheason, influence your decisions.”
She looked back at him for a long moment, then offered her crooked smile. “You say that now…”
In the dark of the Scar, they shared between them a rare laugh, low and even and mild. She had the thought that it might likewise be rare that laughter was heard by anyone in this place. Afterward, they sat in companionable silence for some time, each seeming to carry lighter thoughts, even if just barely.
Finally, she said again, “Get some rest. I’ll keep watch.”
As Vendanj nodded, she saw his brow furrow and his face change, as one who anticipates troubled dreams.
* * *
Vendanj never slept well in the Scar. More than the land’s loss of Forda, or the memory of war that lingered ages later across its barren surface, the problem was that the Scar had a way of reminding its travelers of their own emotional wounds. Sheason were no exception.
Looking up at the hard, dim flicker of stars, Vendanj
knew that what plagued his sleep wasn’t a vestige of the Quiet’s power. It was the emptiness and hopelessness that was rooted in this place. It came near the feeling of the Bourne, where Vendanj had traveled more than once—a place he would not visit again, if he didn’t have need.
Because the memory of a moment long past pricked like a canker in his soul, and each visit to the Bourne tore the wound wider still.
As it did here in the Scar.
* * *
Vendanj ran. The streets of Con Laven Flu still showed signs of the Quiet attack. Black scorchmarks on the sides of buildings, some homes razed to the ground. He thought he saw smoke in a distant part of the city, though that could have been a cook fire.
But all he could think about was Illenia, his wife, and their unborn child.
He tore through the streets at a maddening pace, cursing himself for being overlong in his journey to Recityv on Sheason matters. He’d helped bring a dissent against the new law forbidding Sheason to render. The league had sponsored the law for all of Vohnce and he’d fought it at the seat of the regent. But their baby wasn’t due for some time, so he’d felt safe in leaving for a few days. And Illenia was also Sheason; she could serve equally well without him.
He turned into their street. No!
The mortar stood in rubble. He raced to their doorway and stepped past the half-broken door. Fragments of wood and fallen stone lay all around. He picked up long crossbeams and peered beneath piles of broken rock. She was not here.
But his panic did not abate.
He jumped into the street, thinking to try the homes of people she knew, when Amalial called, “Vendanj!”
He followed the voice, and saw the woman. “Where’s Illenia?”
“She was taken to the league’s hospice, yesterday, when the attacks came.”
Vendanj heard the last in fading tones as he sprinted toward the far end of the quarter where the league’s healing ward stood. His lungs burned and his head pounded with dark suggestions that threatened his sanity. Please be all right, Sweet One. I will be there soon.
The Unremembered: Book One of The Vault of Heaven Page 45