Trial of Intentions

by Peter Orullian

  “It’s a good deal, Woodchuck,” Sutter said, and clapped Tahn on the shoulder.

  Vendanj looked pleased, but his expression quickly returned to his familiar look of hard caution. “We should make the deception complete.” He came and took Sutter’s right hand between his palms. Almost instantly the back of Sutter’s hand began to burn, though he didn’t seem to be in any pain. When Vendanj pulled away, Sutter’s skin bore the same hammer brand as Tahn’s did.

  “What do I tell people this means?” Sutter asked. “It’s hardly a random mark. Is it a sign that I’m meant to be a savior?”

  Grant laughed with his rough voice. “It’s a reminder that life is toil. And that tools are your best friend. Trust tools.” Grant then stepped forward and hung his bow on Sutter’s shoulder. “Carry this. Put your Sedagin glove away, and play the part of Tahn until you get to Ir-Caul—”

  “And then show them the glove,” Sutter finished. “I know.”

  Mira eyed Sutter’s sword and glove. “The Sedagin emblems may not be enough.”

  “Perhaps not,” Vendanj agreed. “But the people there have forgotten who they are. Make them remember. The glyph will help.”

  “Would you mind explaining that?” Sutter asked.

  “I’ll put it in simple words for you along the way,” Mira offered.

  Sutter laughed, hung the pendant around his neck, and that was the end of it.

  Vendanj then addressed them all. “The Quiet don’t always fight in open battle. They’ll use our own kind against us, spread rumors.” He gave Sutter a thoughtful look. “This will make your disguise more useful to us, and more dangerous for you.”

  The Sheason then turned and cupped Wendra’s chin with one hand, his touch fatherly. “Now, clear your mind. Concentrate on the words, their meanings. Envision what is described as crisply as you can. Let it take shape before you.” He squeezed her chin gently. “Melody, Wendra. Strong if your heart tells you to sing it so. Do you understand?”

  Wendra nodded.

  “Tahn will go first.” Vendanj turned to Tahn, and spoke rather cryptically. “Don’t let go of the words that have helped define you. It’s a mistake.” Then the Sheason stepped back with the others.

  Before starting, Wendra stepped close to Tahn, took gentle hold of his arm, and pulled him a few strides away. “I’m still angry. But it’s not as much about you anymore. Or Penit.” She glanced at the Tellings in her left hand. “There’s hardly been time to talk since we left home. Still, I should have found you, so we could argue it out the way Balatin used to make us.” She gave a weak but sincere smile.

  He took her hand. “There’ll be time for that later on.” He offered a conciliatory laugh. “But I won’t be adding any more reasons for you to hate me.”

  She studied his face a moment, questioning.

  “I just mean that from now on you can count on me with this.” He tapped his bow. “And the reason I’m going to Aubade Grove is because I think there’s a way to stop this whole thing before it starts.”

  “The Quiet?” she asked.

  He nodded. “You go learn to sing Suffering,” Tahn said. “And I’ll do what I can to help you from the Grove.”

  She saw earnest passion in Tahn when he spoke about this Grove and what he meant to do there. He looked determined and excited.

  “But I don’t want any of that to change us so much that we forget the Hollows,” he added. “Fresh rhubarb in the spring. Remember? Your anger is sweet and bitter.”

  She smiled at that. “When this is all done, I’ll make us a rhubarb pie. We’ll eat it on the porch with a pitcher of chilled cucumber water. I should be cooled off by then. Belamae will help me with that.” The thought of the Maesteri widened her smile. He had a calming influence. And he’d teach her how to use her song. Something she wanted now more than ever.

  Grant stepped close. “Both of you, take care.”

  Tahn extended his other hand to Grant, who held it long enough to be more than a simple farewell. It looked like Grant wanted to say something to Tahn, but finally just nodded.

  Wendra then squeezed Tahn’s hand and let it drop. She turned toward an open area beside a row of high pyracantha bushes. She breathed deeply, and started to read. Slowly, softly, she began to hum the feel of the words, giving rise to a melody that sounded to her like the place described in the Telling.

  A very low sound resonated over her teeth as she read and saw the images of Aubade Grove in her mind. Soon, she sang a few lines of spontaneous melody inspired by the beauty of the words and the images they conjured. A few moments later, she was singing without pause, in a fuller voice, raising the words into a song that expressed the feeling of the place and gave it shape and substance.

  As she sang, two things happened.

  In the space before her, the air began to ripple. It appeared as if a thousand threads danced in vertical and horizontal lines, weaving in and out of each other, tightening. It reminded her of looking through summer heat rising from sunbaked earth, blurring whatever lay beyond it. Except that this had a pattern, as though a fabric or rug was being woven.

  At the same time, something inside her screamed for her attention—the song that gave her relief from the memories of childbirth and slave auctions and children whisked away by Quiet hands.

  Her voice warbled. The passage taking form in front of her undulated as if unstable. She tried to focus on the words, force her voice to follow the lines of melody she’d found. But the harder she tried, the less cohesive the strands of air seemed to become.

  “Focus, Wendra,” she heard the Sheason say somewhere behind her.

  She closed her eyes and found the image of Penit, remembered the pageant wagon plays he’d perform for them, his vibrant wit and trust. Then she saw Jastail, the highwayman who’d taken her and Penit and tried to sell them into the Bourne. That was enough. She opened her eyes and focused on the words, reading and singing until the two things felt like the same action.

  Over the top of the parchment, the air shimmered brightly before her. It drew itself in long threads, as if on an invisible loom. She stared at the image taking shape, like a mirage on a desert plain. Her voice grew stronger, declaring the grandeur of this place called Aubade Grove.

  She wove her melody into a higher register, the sound of it coming more naturally now. The clear tones rose high on the morning air, reaching out over the garden. And in front of her, the fabric of the world crystallized into a large portal, through which the image of five great towers appeared.

  She didn’t see the last good-byes. She only saw Tahn walk past her and through the Telling she’d sung. She saw him double over as if in great pain just before he dropped out of sight. She let go her song, and the threads of the Telling unraveled until she was looking only at Elan’s pyracantha hedge.

  “Again,” Vendanj prompted her, not commenting on what they must all surely have seen when Tahn hit the Telling window.

  Wendra opened the second parchment—Recityv—and repeated what she’d done.

  After several moments, another opening wove itself together, showing them the capital of Vohnce.

  “You’ll come last,” Vendanj told her. “Don’t stop singing until you’re standing on the other side.”

  Her pulse quickened. She could see Recityv as through a dull haze. She hadn’t noticed the skim layer when she’d sung for Tahn, but then she wasn’t familiar with Aubade Grove. Before she could stop or warn them, her companions were moving through the opening.

  “Keep singing,” Vendanj said, as he led his horse through.

  The Sheason’s confidence in her bolstered Wendra’s song, and she gave everything she could to it. A few moments later, she went in.

  The movement was like trying to run through chest-deep water. The mounts all lurched, and fell. Sound traveled slowly, the tones bending, deepening.

  Around her, Braethen and Grant tumbled to soft, wet earth. With great difficulty, she rolled to her back and ceased to sing. The window throu
gh space began to fragment, dissipate, and then was gone.

  Wendra dropped her head back into mud, but quickly rolled and retched. She could hear others doing the same, even as her own stomach heaved from sickness and nausea. Some kind of filmy residue had gotten on her, in her.

  She flopped onto her back and drew deep, ragged breaths. Dark clouds rolled in the sky above, and she tried to concentrate on their gentle movement to ease her senses. Sometime later—she didn’t know how long—the Sheason crawled to her side.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Wendra nodded. “I told you it was too soon.”

  She could feel the wet, brackish mud on her fingers and face. From the smell of rotting plants, and the awful feeling that still roiled in her belly, she was afraid to know where they had ended up. Her mind raced to dark conclusions.

  “It wasn’t perfect,” Vendanj admitted, “but look.”

  He helped her to sit up, and pointed. In the far distance, looking like another mirage, were the walls of Recityv. The sight of it brought relief, and tears of gratitude.

  “We owe you much, Anais,” he said, using the old term of respect.

  She looked over at Braethen, stretched out on the bank of what she could now see was a wide, stagnant pond. He shared a look of thanks with her and nodded, not yet ready, she assumed, to test getting up or speaking. He didn’t look well.

  Grant was trying to stand, his face tightly pinched with pain.

  She laid her head back into Vendanj’s lap and closed her eyes, fighting another wave of nausea. Beneath it, though, rose a hint of small victory. She’d done it. She marveled again that her song had any power beyond mere melody. And her excitement grew at being so near Descant, near a chance to learn Suffering. For the moment, though, she allowed herself to enjoy the accomplishment of having brought them so far.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Bourne: Prelude

  If you learn that a prisoner is innocent, do you not set him free? How is our conscience, then, if the creation stories are true and the Inveterae races’ only sin—which committed them forever to the Bourne—was being undesirable.

  —“The Condemantion of Gods and Man,” a new abstract set forth by Darius Franck, College of Philosophy, Aubade Grove

  Kett Valan dropped to his knees in a puddle of his own blood. His arms were yanked hard in opposite directions by thick leather bands tied to his wrists and anchored to dead trees on either side. He howled in pain. The sound rose past the tribunal, beyond basalt crags, toward a lowering Bourne sky. A deep autumn chill hung in the air. Morning frost covered the ground, save where it had melted in the warmth of his blood. His lips trembled. But not from cold, or even pain. They trembled with confession. He would confess, not to stop the whip and its barbs of rusty steel—the pain he could bear. He would confess, and betray the Inveterae races who secretly sought escape from the Bourne, because he hadn’t the will to watch his family suffer.

  The Inveterae were his people, too. Which made the confession more bitter still. The First Fathers had herded Inveterae races into the Bourne with Quietgiven when they’d abandoned this world. Or so the old stories told. The Fathers hadn’t found enough value in his kin to let them remain in the lands of men. Kett believed the gods were wrong. That they’d been hasty.

  He was Gotun. Not a beautiful race. Not like men. Denser of muscle and bone. Thicker of nose and waist. More like Bar’dyn, but boasting smoother skin—easier to brand. But a father doesn’t see those things when he looks at his children or mate.

  His little ones, Marckol and Neliera, stood in the firm grip of Quiet guards. Filthy Bar’dyn hands on them brought fresh anger. He might defy the tribunal even now, were it not for the fear in his son’s eyes, and the tears on his daughter’s cheeks. Their worry and dread was for him; they didn’t understand that their own lives hung in the balance of his choices here today.

  His companion, Saleema, tried to show him a brave face. But the haggard lines on her brow told a different story. He pushed back his pain and shame, and offered her a look of strength to set her heart at ease.

  “Stand,” Balroath commanded. The Jinaal officer’s voice rang with deep clarity—the hallmark of the Jinaal House. “Have the strength to meet your judgment on your feet, Kett Valan. Or else confirm the rumors of your treachery. Admit that you lead this separatist movement with fellow Inveterae conspirators.”

  Kett drew one foot forward and pushed himself to his feet. A wave of nausea and dizziness threatened to tumble him again to his knees, but he fought the sensation, using the lashes bound to his wrists to steady himself.

  Balroath nodded. “Good. Traitors should have the same courage in the face of those they betray as when they plot in the dark. Now, let’s speak plainly, you and I, so that we don’t misunderstand one another.”

  Balroath drew back his whip and brought it down savagely across Kett’s neck. The force and bite of the blow almost dropped Kett again. But he locked his knees and squeezed his arms as close together as he could, using the leathers to keep himself upright.

  This time, he bit back his cries, trying to spare his little ones. He couldn’t let them watch this any longer. He had to tell Balroath. But how could he condemn all the Inveterae races, give up their search for escaping the hopelessness of the Bourne. As he convulsed from the strain of torture, he cast his eyes heavenward.

  We should never have been sent here.

  When the pain receded, he lowered his stare to his torturer and judge. “No misunderstanding.” He tried to sound dignified, but struggled to talk through his own shuddering breath. “You force my confession with the rough end of your whip and by threatening my family. Your tribunal is a mockery. We are not like you—” He gasped a breath. “… never have been.”

  Again the whip lashed out, this time tearing deeply at his cheek.

  “If you mean that you’re ungrateful, then we agree.” Balroath gathered the lash. “You plan to lead Inveterae away from the only advocates they’ve ever had. You may have descended from the hands of different gods than we did, but those gods caged you here with us. So what is it, Kett Valan? How are you different? Is it that you think only Inveterae deserve to escape the Bourne?”

  Kett smiled, the rip in his face sending new shivers of pain down his neck. “You don’t want liberation, Balroath. You want dominion.” He laughed. “And advocates? Inveterae are your footstools. Always have been. We raise your crops, tend your prisoner camps. You shove us ahead of you when you try to push through the Veil, then walk over our backs when we fall dead in the breach.”

  Balroath let the flail fly again. And again. And kept on until Kett dropped. This time his shoulders popped as his arms separated from his shoulder joints. He hung down, his face near enough to the ground that he could smell coppery blood and fallow earth.

  He whispered, mostly for himself, “We want what was taken from us, but not through war. We just wish to go south. And live.”

  A long silence settled among them. Balroath interrupted the stillness with a subtle threat: He put down the whip. The next assault would be on someone he loved.

  “I will not ask again.”

  Kett’s chest and gut tightened. Could he reveal the names and plans and hopes of countless families?

  I have to get us out!

  One last time he turned to Saleema. He needed her look of faith and courage. There was none. Only an aimless plea. Her heart had been pushed too far. He was alone.

  He wanted to cry out to his gods, then. Seek rescue, or strength, or just relief. Their Abandonment had never struck him as deeply as now. He was not alone merely in this remote tribunal. He was alone under all the skies of heaven.

  In his mind rose the story of Tanelius, an Inveterae of the Fennsalar race herded into the Bourne after the Whiting of Quietus. Tanelius, who, though abandoned by his makers, would not abandon them. Tanelius, who had believed that his own decency would qualify him one day to return to the lands south of the Pall. Tanelius, who ha
d earned the trust of the Quiet through labor.…

  A new thought lit in Kett’s mind. A dangerous one.

  There were rumors that the Quiet had discovered a way out of the Bourne, or at least knew a way of disrupting the Veil while they crossed. It was only a rumor, but one Kett had heard enough times to lend it some weight.

  So, there was a way.

  Coughing up more blood, he gathered all his strength and stood, his shoulders throbbing with pain. “Place me in service. Give me a rank.”

  Balroath’s eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?”

  “If I betray my cousins, I’ll be dead in a few hours—my people won’t suffer a double tongue. But if you pardon me, give me a brand and rank, I am more valuable to you.”

  “I’m listening,” Balroath said with neither interest or skepticism.

  Kett composed himself, drew a lungful of air, and looked around at the other tribunal members. “If there is an Inveterae exodus planned, it will take much for you to stop it. Not to mention the distraction from your own plans. But Inveterae races will listen to me. I can be an example. I can lead them in a new direction.”

  Balroath studied him. “Why would you do this?”

  “You know the answer to that.” Kett glanced at Saleema and his children. “But I must be raised in the estimation of your leaders, the Sedgel. I must have a place among you.”

  Balroath stared at him with questioning eyes.

  “Otherwise,” Kett continued, “Inveterae won’t believe what I tell them.”

  “And what would you tell them?”

  Kett formed the words carefully. “That you will lead us all into the world beyond the Pall. That you don’t want war. That you will return us to the first intentions of the Framers.”

  Balroath laughed—an awful, basso sound that got into the very soil. “You think you can convince Inveterae of this?”

  Kett stared back with as much challenge as he dared. “If they see me seated in the halls of your leadership … yes.”

  The sour mirth on Balroath’s face fell away. He stepped forward, brandishing his whip. “You don’t understand the bargain you strike, Kett Valan. The south of the Bourne is a good place for you. North and west … it has a different occupation. And if we agree, you will be changed. You might prefer to die as you are.”