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Some time later, Jaret was back on the straw mattress that covered his small wooden bed. He was feeling much improved. He had nearly recovered the full use of his arm and legs. The pounding in his head had faded to a steady ache that was so regular that it was almost unnoticed. And thanks to the boots, he could breathe without debilitating pain. Using his small knife, he had cut the tops off of the tall boots, slit those tubes down the center, and used the lacing from his shirt to construct a crude brace. That brace cut his breaths short, making him breathe at a near pant, but it also protected his broken ribs and made the injury bearable.
Though he felt better, he tried to look as helpless as possible. He was certain that Nabim would come to see him. That petty man would not miss his chance to gloat, and when he arrived, Jaret would be waiting. He clutched the knife at his side, hidden beneath the thin blanket that covered him. The act would certainly end in his death, but his life was already forfeit. His only possible remaining purpose was to save his beloved nation from the scourge of Emperor Nabim and, the Order willing, his black-robed henchman.
The thought of the strange man sent a painful shiver down Jaret’s spine. To this point, he had tried to think about what had happened in the throne room as little as possible. He was not certain that his sanity could take the battle that was required to explain the utterly inexplicable power he had witnessed. He knew the old verses from The Book of Valatarian that counselors used to frighten children, the verses about the Lawbreakers and the horrible creatures that were cast out of the world by Valatarian. Of everything he had heard and read, those legends came closest to describing what he had seen, but even the most stalwart counselors were quick to point out that such verses were metaphors, that no one could actually break the Order's omnipotent laws.
“The world was created first by Order,” The Book of Valatarian said. “It is the core, the basis for all. Nothing can exist without a reason, without a place in the Order.”
Despite what those passages said – and Jaret could think of countless others – he could not dispute what he had seen, what he had felt. The power of that small man had been no illusion or trick. Nabim an’ Pmalatir – az’ Pmalatir by now, Jaret thought – had found a man who could circumvent the Holy Order, who could break its unbreakable laws. The thought was unimaginable. It shook the very core of everything that Jaret had been taught, of everything he believed.
From Across the Clouded Range Page 78