Trial of Intentions

by Peter Orullian

  “It doesn’t matter who we are,” Mira cut in, her voice as calm as it always was. “Your help is needed. We’ve been sent to ask for it.”

  Relothian hadn’t ceased to look at Sutter’s sword hand. “And yet, you have their blade and glove. So either you’re one hell of a fighter, who bested a Sedagin and took his things—which would be noteworthy. Or these were given to you, which is more noteworthy. What I have little patience for is that Vendanj used these to get to me. Bastard.”

  The king paused, looking at Sutter as though remembering something. “Don’t profane this place with talk of sacrifice, or think whatever you’ve lost gives you a right to speak here. You don’t know sacrifice. You don’t even know Vendanj well enough to understand his true intentions in sending you into Alon’Itol.” The king looked at Mira, then back at Sutter. “Irreverent boy. Vendanj knew I wouldn’t take my seat at Convocation. That’s not why he sent you to me.” He looked at each of them. “But I think I’d like to find out.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Sky Proofs

  Rumor had it that Lour was working a proof … of the gods. Brilliant, crazy bastard. You don’t seem him around though, do you? Have to say, zealots got nothing on scientists where ostracism is concerned. I think he raises corn now.

  —“The Myth of Objectivity,” a survey focusing on self-critique in the science community following the death of Nanjesho Alanes

  Tahn’s third day after falling through the Telling hurt a little less than the day before. A little. He was now convinced a good part of the pain was simply from the fall, rather than the Telling itself. He’d enjoyed his cocoon for a few days. He and Rithy and Polaema talked, ate, talked, and talked some more. It felt to Tahn like standing beneath a great falls, knowledge and memory like water crashing down. Connections came at lightning speed, and constantly: astronomical concepts, computation, debates over physical law.

  They laughed happily when one of them made a simple error in logic, then pounced on the problem together to find new, unassailable logic. And through it all, he made liberal use of the Dimnian study techniques Grant had taught him.

  And he moved beyond what he’d known before, practically swallowing new books whole: Savant Lumen’s volume on the varying qualities of light; a few philosophical tracts on the Mal people; a theoretical math text by Herbel, a Wynstout calculist; and another ten or twelve books—he lost count—on new geomechanical models, entire volumes on skyward observations and phenomena Tahn could never have seen on his own.

  But he grew a bit cabin mad, and needed to get outside. Needed to get Succession under way. Each day he imagined the Quiet crossing the Pall. Imagined more wards walking into the Scar with their knives. Desperation stirred him. Stop the Quiet before everything is Scar.

  Rithy helped him out of bed and led him on a slow, ambling tour to reacquaint him with Aubade Grove. Before leaving her home, he’d instinctively looked for his bow, finding it propped in the corner. He wound up leaving the weapon where it stood, and followed Rithy out.

  He estimated the small city to be roughly half a league from one end to the other. Around it, in a great circle, a solid stone wall rose maybe seven strides—enough to form a defense, but not enough to weather a siege. The Grove wasn’t likely in any jeopardy of assault, though, since it held neither political significance nor ambition.

  The five towers, set in a broad pentagon, rose at the center of the Grove. In fact, the towers were largely the reason for the name, forming an imposing kind of copse on the long plain. Three hundred strides up they went, bearing at their tops not banners or pennants, but great glass domes. For observation. Of the stars. Each tower had a particular focus, too: astronomy, physics, mathematics, philosophy, and cosmology. And each of the five colleges was led by a savant of unparalleled understanding in their area of research and study.

  Between each of the towers, lecture halls and libraries had been erected, forming a pentacle at the center of the city. If one wanted to peruse a volume or hear a discourse on a certain subject, they had only to find the halls closest to that tower.

  But the Grove wasn’t an academy in the way others were. There were students, to be sure. But only a few. And pedagogy wasn’t its purpose. Working physicists and mathematicians and astronomers lived here. And they placed the highest importance on research and discovery. What few students there were had to contribute to the advancement of their college’s body of knowledge, or they were asked to make room for those who could.

  Those who were cut loose usually wound up buying drinks for real researchers, to try to curry some favor. That, or selling Grove supplies. Things like Ebon-shore lenscrafter sand, shaped loden stones, brass-tooth gearwheels, and sheaves of weathercut—a good paper for recording calculations when the air turns damp. And they often took up trades that served the Grove’s purpose. Hard to shake a stick and not hit a bookbinder or ironmonger or glassmaster—the last being former glassblowers turned to lens and mirror work.

  And these same merchants often brokered the knowledge produced in the Grove for a healthy sum, shaving a small percentage off before returning the rest to administrators to keep the Grove in lenses and ink.

  Beyond the merchant ring were the houses where Grove residents lived. Interspersed throughout were small handcart markets selling fresh beets, potatoes, carrots, butchered hog, wheat, rice, and sometimes wool cloth and ankle-high tanners’ footwear. As far as Tahn could tell, the only shops with stone walls in the residential areas were those that traded in the instruments of science.

  Despite having to climb a short set of stairs, which proved a bit painful, he insisted on entering Perades, an astronomy mercantile, so named for a meteor shower that came yearly in early autumn. With Rithy supporting one arm, Tahn made his way into the shop.

  He paused a few steps past the door, surveying the many tables and shelves around the store. The closest table on the right lay stacked with quadrant maps, lined parchment for making one’s own charts, and journals for recording findings. On the same table stood a box filled with graphite sticks, styluses, and vials of ink—black, crimson, cobalt, and green.

  Against the wall to the right a series of bookshelves stood, heavily laden with thick volumes whose spines were well creased from many reads. These weren’t for sale; it was a lending library of books that hadn’t yet been accepted as scientific fact. “Scientific apocrypha” they called it, just to give it a sense of danger. You’d not find these in the larger libraries near the towers. Tahn itched to peruse them.

  But his attention quickly passed to the next table, across which astronomical sextants, dioptras, equitoria, and torquetum—all things to measure the position of the stars and moons and sun—had been neatly organized. Tahn shuffled to the table’s edge to take a closer look. He could remember Mother Polaema teaching him how to sight in a star and convert the angles to distance and measure its closeness. Countless nights he’d stood out in the chill darkness, a hooded lantern set on the ground to dimly light his charts and personal journal. The memories were strong and comforting.

  Then he saw the third table, and fell immediately reverent. Set there in neat rows were astrolabes, astronomical clocks—astraria, Tahn recalled—and at the back side, farthest from the door, a short line of armillary spheres.

  My skies …

  He stood staring at the devices, admiring the spherical framework of metal rings, centered on their world. The rings represented lines of celestial latitude and longitude—the ecliptic, meridians, parallels—circles linking the poles and representing the equator. All to demonstrate and map the motion of the stars as they moved about Aeshau Vaal.

  Of course, the Aeshau sphere had been largely replaced with a similar armillary that took the sun as its center. Better science. But he had a fondness for the older instrument that was hard to explain. Perhaps it was little more than him not wanting to see the past made irrelevant.

  As he slowly came around the last table, gently fingering these astronomer tools, he
took in the scents of polished brass, leather bindings, sanded oak, and the mild aroma of ink.

  At the back wall, on a series of hooks, rested at least a dozen skyglasses of varying length and lens and mirror size; in the corner a lone skyglass stood on a tripod, this one twice the length of the others, its glass spanning two hands at the end. Lenscrafting had taken a major leap in the last few decades. The use of Hidan sand off Ebon shores had been found to have an effective scouring quotient for good polish.

  Tahn stopped again, overwhelmed with a feeling of being someplace … right. He’d been young when he’d stood here before, but the years of separation faded more each passing moment.

  He smiled at his own nostalgia, and looked up to find the chalkboard on the right-side wall, where it had always been. On it the most recent deep sky findings were noted. Like a running list of winners, numbers and hashmarks beside names told of who had found what and where they’d found it.

  And finally, opposite the board, near the left wall, sat a squat desk, where a man nigh onto fifty years old sat waiting patiently for their inquiries.

  Tahn tugged Rithy toward the proprietor, feeling the kind of glee a child might when given a surprise gift. As he neared the merchant, the other’s brow progressively tightened in the lines of scrutiny. When Tahn came to stand in front of him, the man’s knitted brow unfurled, and he stood up with a big, sloppy grin.

  “Gnomon, my stars, you’re back!” Martin Tye quickly rounded his desk, and had nearly taken Tahn in a mighty embrace before Rithy held up a hand.

  “He’s hurt,” she said. “Best not squeeze him.”

  Martin’s enthusiasm welled up inside him until he finally threw his arms up and hollered. “Welcome, my boy! Welcome!”

  His old friend’s booming voice brought Shaylas, his wife, from the back room. Dark wavy hair fell past her shoulders. She stood as tall as Tahn, and used a grin to say hello. Seeing her again reminded him of his childhood infatuation with her. He could feel heat rising in his cheeks.

  Shaylas was as lean as she’d ever been, and held in her arms a child. It made him think of Sutter to see her with the babe. Martin and Shaylas had traveled and performed with the pageant wagons in their young lives. They’d come to Aubade Grove to play the old stories, and never left. Now they’d begun a family. It was the life Sutter might have written for himself.

  “Welcome back, Tahn.” Shaylas came close and kissed his cheek.

  The whole thing left him a little shaky.

  “Oh my skies,” Rithy mumbled under her breath.

  “A son,” Tahn said, looking first at Shaylas, then Martin, who gave an exaggerated smile of pride.

  “And why not. We’re able-bodied,” Martin offered with mock defensiveness.

  Shaylas laughed. “I know what’s coming next, so I’m going to excuse myself. A pleasure to see you again, Tahn.” And she sauntered into the back room, speaking softly to the child as she went.

  Tahn smiled, and turned to face his old friend. “It’s good to be back, Martin. How are you?”

  “That’s all you’ve got to say? You disappear for eight years, then stroll into my shop and ask me, easy as you please, how I’ve been? I’ve a mind to smack you with my newest reflecting skyglass.”

  Tahn remembered that Martin had nearly made a religion of using reflectors, eschewing refracting telescopes as an unnecessary hindrance in observational astronomy.

  Martin dashed away and returned with a skyglass that could have been no less in length than hip to toe. Its mirror spanned a full two hands across. “Feast your eyes on that, my boy.” He handed the skyglass to Tahn, who took it gently in his fingers. It fit his hand as naturally as his bow did. He desperately wanted to try it, but he hadn’t the coin for something this grand, and he couldn’t let himself be distracted. What he really needed was to find Polaema. Now that he’d left his cocoon, he had to get started on Succession. Mother Polaema would be the one to help him get it under way.

  But the draw proved too strong. He raised the glass and aimed it out the front door, across the street. The mirror pulled in the image of a man standing just inside the shadow of the horology shop across the way. The figure had its unwavering attention trained on Martin’s place. Whoever it was couldn’t know from this distance—and from outside Perades, no less—that Tahn saw him.

  No one knows I’m here, though.

  Perhaps he’d left his cocoon too soon.

  “Not bad, right?” Martin asked rhetorically.

  “Not bad,” Tahn agreed, handing back the glass.

  “Well, don’t get too excited,” Martin said with heavy sarcasm. “I was planning to make a present of it to you for your return. But—”

  Tahn reached out and gently gripped the man by the elbow. “I’m still recovering, Martin. Don’t be offended. And there’s no need to give away merchandise, even to your best deep sky observer.” He smiled.

  Martin returned the smile. “Why are you back, Gnomon?”

  Tahn hesitated a moment, but in the warmth of Martin’s smile remembered the man had been as good a friend to him as Rithy. “I’m going to call for a Succession of Arguments.”

  Martin’s smile erupted into agreeable laughter. “Of course you are! And by my best glass, you’ll win this time.” He started to give Tahn a slap on the back, but remembered Rithy’s warning and turned it into a gentle tap. “Let me know if you need some help. I could stand a bit of fun in the theaters.”

  “I’ll do that,” Tahn said, imagining that he might, in fact, need Martin at some point—the man considered the discourse theaters where arguments were made as just another stage to play. He then caught a look of Rithy’s face. Mention of Succession had stolen the smile she’d been wearing.

  A new voice startled them all. “I could use a bit of fun in the theaters, myself.”

  Tahn turned to see a stranger standing less than two strides away, a pleasant smile on his face. He gave them all a look like he belonged to their conversation.

  “Darius Franck,” Rithy said, announcing the man. “Philosopher. Leagueman. Jackass.”

  Tahn kept himself from laughing.

  “Ah, Gwen Alanes.” Darius stepped forward, pulling gloves from his hands one finger at a time. “It’s very interesting to hear you’re going to be party to a Succession. Given your unfortunate history with the process.”

  Martin raised one of his beefy limbs. “You can close your gob, if you’re going to use it that way. These here are friends of mine, and I don’t give a piss for anyone in my place who won’t respect that.”

  Darius held up his arms as one being robbed. “Peace. Peace. I was entitled to one barb for the jackass comment, wouldn’t you say?”

  Martin held his tongue on that, but had a cudgel-like hold on his skyglass.

  Darius looked Tahn up and down once. “So this is Tahn SeFerry? Refiner of skyglass parabolas. Finder of planets who lose their way. Kissing boy for savants in their glass towers. Skittish mule who runs when things get tragic.”

  Martin lifted the skyglass threateningly.

  Tahn put a hand on the glass, gently pushing it down. “You have me at a disadvantage. All I know about you is you’re a jackass.”

  “I believe Gwen said philosopher and leagueman,” Darius corrected.

  “That’s what I said.” Tahn smiled and drew the moment out for effect. “… jackass.”

  “I see.” Darius cleared his throat and set his feet like an orator—probably the only offensive stance he knew. “Then, you’d know nothing about another young man by the name of Tahn Junell who goes about shooting children and dismissing it as an unfortunate circumstance of battle.”

  The Quiet don’t always fight in open battle, Vendanj had said. They will use our own kind against us, spread rumors.

  Tahn marveled that the rumors had spread this far in just a few handfuls of days. But he didn’t marvel long. The effect of the verbal barb was like a coward’s punch—made while one’s opponent isn’t looking—and left Tahn a bit
dumbstruck.

  “What do you want, Darius?” Rithy made his name sound like a blight on all of philosophy.

  “Answers,” he said glibly. “There are stories on the road. And then our long-lost astronomer shows up seeking a Succession of Arguments. I’m just trying to reconcile these rather disparate happenings.”

  Tahn finally found his voice. “Makes sense to me.”

  “Ah, a reasonable fellow,” Darius said, his tone thick with condescension.

  “Of course, that’s the work of philosophy.” Tahn gestured comically. “Since you don’t actually do any real science, you feel it’s your place to reconcile the work of those who do. Perfectly understandable.”

  Darius’s smile never faltered. “And yet we occupy and manage twenty percent of Grove assets—”

  “Sounds like you ought to be a moneylender,” Tahn said, smiling back.

  Darius was nodding the way a man does when he’s enjoying a good debate. “What will be your topic for Succession, then, if I may ask?”

  “Well, see, I’d explain it to you, but it involves theoretical math. And it sounds to me like you’re best with share numbers and profit margins. How’s the Grove export business these days on philosophy tracts. Brisk? Or does the Grove make her money on actual scientific knowledge … as. It always. Has.”

  Martin spewed laughter, sending a sizeable bit of spittle onto Darius’s forehead. The philosopher removed a kerchief as decorously as possible and wiped the spit away, making a gift of the kerchief to Martin.

  Amazingly, he’d never lost his smile. It grew more tense, appearing harder to keep on—Tahn figured it was because of the spittle—but if he were any judge, the prospect of a worthy rival actually thrilled Darius.

  “I love a good mystery to solve as much as anyone,” said Darius, “even a murdering astronomer. I’ll wait for the formal announcement, then. And I have to tell you”—he leaned in toward Tahn—“I hope you get past the Colleges of Physics and Mathematics.”

  “Because you think I’ll lose to the College of Philosophy in turn?” Tahn surmised, shaking his head at the obviousness.