by Scott Rhine
“Were I the villain you make me out to be, you’d do well to guard your tongue,” said Tashi, bluffing.
Nigel crossed his arms, and looked at the scratches on the bottom of the other man’s sheath. “Or what, you’ll prove me right? That isn’t even your sword. It belonged to a much taller man. You’re too short on one end to be an Imperial, so I can only assume that you stole this blade.”
When the sheriff flinched, the actor cackled with laughter. “You did! So you are a thief as well. What fine company I keep. Are the hounds after you?” Tashi considered this and then nodded. “Ho, this is rich. My service is to help a thrice-condemned criminal escape justice.”
Tashi stood. “Are you reneging?”
Nigel began packing his gear. “No, no. I just like to know who I’m traveling with is all. You douse that fire while I gather my things.”
“But it’s night time,” protested Tashi.
“Are you so sleepy that you are willing to share your bed with the hunters?” asked the actor. When the sheriff shook his head, Nigel said, “Then we must work hard to place the veil of many leagues between us and your pursuers.”
The sheriff extinguished the fire and buried the evidence. Afterward, he adjusted his borrowed sword into a back-harnessed position for a better fit. While walking about, however, Tashi acidentally kicked over a coin that had been sitting in the middle of the road. Nigel hooted at this before picking up the coin. “West it is.”
“But my goal is northeast of here,” the sheriff complained.
“So are the hunters, stalking the very road they expect you to take,” the actor countered. When the sheriff was not convinced, Nigel asked, “Do you believe in the Traveler?”
Tashi nodded. The actor seemed gratified at the rapid response. “Then it is not accident that brings us together. As you pointed out earlier, I’m trained in the bardic ways. Do you trust my ability to evade pursuit?”
The sheriff nodded.
“Do you trust the Traveler to protect you from an unbladed, old man?” asked the actor.
“Absolutely.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” asked the actor, taking the lead down the path where the coin had finally pointed. Unable to come up with a reason not to, Tashi followed.
Chapter 17 – Rhythm of the Road
Every morning the sheriff would, without a word, exercise, eat, and resume travel down the road. His ribs were still sore, but binding them tightly seemed to help. He missed much of what his companion grumbled about due to the damage the giant had done to his hearing, but there was nothing wrong with his eyesight. After three days of virtually no communication, the sheriff interrupted his morning sword exercises with the observation “We’ve been through a lot of border towns lately.”
The older actor blinked, caught off guard. The entire scene reminded him of the old joke about the mute boy who spoke only to complain about burned biscuits. “It stands to reason, sir, as we are on the border.”
Innocent-faced, the swordsman asked, “Why?”
The amusement drained from Nigel’s eyes. Angry, he burst out, “For the last time, you said that Kragen’s men were looking for you on the Emperor’s Road. You drafted me to get you to the Seer’s Temple, and that’s what I’ll do. But I refuse to get myself killed in the process. We travel north by obscure roads until we reach Barnham, hopefully by tonight. The central trade route across Intaglios is in good repair and will get us safely to the new Imperial capital, Reneau. The ruins of the Seer Zariah lay within a day’s walk to the south of the capital.”
“Oh,” the sheriff mumbled, returning to his practice. He went through forms of all seven sacred stances, drawing energy into himself with one move, while shielding his vital force with another. The ritual was an armed variation of “greeting the sun” performed by Jotham. Once finished, Tashi ate a handful of dried grain and fruit, the same as he had the day before. Then, he commenced the day’s walk at a brisk pace.
Nigel chewed on stamina root to keep up with the younger man and hummed a ballad. Early in the morning, they passed yet another miniscule town. Small children and women gathered about a well, playing and gossiping respectively. Nigel pronounced himself in need of refreshment, and veered from the road. The sheriff intervened between the actor and the community. “We have enough water on us for today. If we tarry, we may be too late.”
“For what?” the actor begged. “We don’t know,” Tashi replied, resuming his league-eating pace.
Irritation built in the old traveler until, an hour later, he burst out, “Dogs must love you.” The sheriff wrinkled his brow. “A strong hand and mind-numbing repetition, that’s all they respect.” The actor ranted for a while, concluding with, “But all that I could accept. The problem is that you have no sense of wonder, no appreciation for the world around you. You lack a soul.”
Far from being stung by the insult, Tashi stared into himself for a moment, trying to catch a resonant thought. “The journey is more important than the destination.”
Hearing scriptures for the first time in two decades stunned Nigel again.
“But in proper repetition we may find the seeds of perfection,” the sheriff continued, as if quoting someone else’s sermon. “When I practice my sword, I rebuild my muscles, visualize what I will do in each situation, focus my being, and remove doubts. In practice, I define who I will be and how I will react.”
Snidely, the actor snapped, “So you must be the best killer in the world by now.”
At this, the sheriff stopped in his tracks while dust clouded up around him. With anger held in check, he said, “Killing is easy. Control and direction of force is an art.” Seek innocence, the guardian had said.
The old man sneered. “So what if you know a few tricks? The grave is full of talented men!”
Tashi winced at memories triggered by these words. The sheriff continued the journey, stone-faced and silent. The actor seemed content in his verbal victory and followed. After a few bits, Tashi asked, “Why do you sing the same verse over and over?”
Nigel ignored the irritated tone, glad that his companion was finally showing signs of humanity. “To perfect my performance, to try minor variations, and for meditation.”
“Ah, the same as my answer for my sword,” the sheriff said smugly.
This comparison seemed to anger Nigel anew. “How dare you put the two of us in the same category? I’m not a butcher for hire. The ballad I’m singing now was written for this road. It was designed to pace the journey and point out landmarks and rest stations, not for the shedding of blood.”
The insult flowed off Tashi’s back as he absorbed the new piece of information. “Fascinating! Are there other songs like this that have secret meaning?”
“Most of them, for everything from harvest to the marriage bed. Yet, the meaning is not supposed to be a secret. Songs were meant to be useful and meaningful to people’s lives, not trapped on the written page and condemned to iron-bound bookshelves,” the actor said vehemently. The old man had coarse, salt-and-pepper stubble on his face, sour-grape scent on his breath, and coals of hatred in his eyes. But the sheriff was no longer paying attention.
This tirade had triggered another thought for Tashi about procreation and what writing was really for. However, the revelation vanished like a dream when the actor smacked him in the shoulder. The old man’s eyes had the intensity of an attacking wolf. “I asked what you had to say for your analogy now.”
The sheriff responded as his master would have, uing the strength of his opponent against him. “Your goal is to make songs alive. Mine is to make the law alive. The law, too, suffers when kept bound on the shelf. My sword is just one tool I use on that mission. Our two ways are just petals on the same, six-fold path.”
Nigel hissed like a tea kettle, unable to speak coherently for several moments. “You… justice? Self-righteous, sanctimonious, pompous fascist. Just who died and made you my judge?”
Tashi stared him full in the face and said calm
ly, “When a warden dies, authority falls to the next sheriff encountering the prisoner to complete the sentence until he is paroled. You, sir, were a member of the work gangs and never paroled.” His companion had indeed been bard trained, but not at the colleges.
Shocked, the actor asked, “How could you tell?”
It galled Nigel that a man who mumbled to himself and asked questions like a child could pierce his veil so casually. Without malice, the sheriff recited his reasons. “You have the aura of the unfinished about you, some mark on you that will not allow you to settle in any one place for long. However, your hatred for the church and authority tells me that you were not a willing participant in your own enlightenment. Your acceptance of my fugitive status tells me that you are one as well. Finally, the way you gather extra pava leaves to stock every outhouse we pass tells me you were on the rehabilitation work crew rather than leading it.
“I just don’t know what your original sentence was for. Neither do I care. As long as you get me to the Temple of the Seer, your debt is canceled,” Tashi said.
Now, it was Nigel’s turn to stew in silence for hours. What irked the actor the most was that he could find no fault in anything the man had said. In his own heart, the actor admitted to being a criminal several times over and deserving far worse punishment than this. Still, it seemed a waste for any man, even one this annoying, to spend his life on a dead religion. The actor decided that it might be better to befriend this man and teach him the obvious error of his ways. Nigel’s tone shifted from vinegar to honey when he spoke again. Over lunch, he apologized and asked, “Out of curiosity, how did someone of your obvious youth learn the Old Ways? I thought that all the priests were dead.”
Quite calmly, the sheriff drank from the waterskin and replied, “My master received his training from the clerics in the Temple Fortress of Tor Mardun.”
Nigel stopped chewing. “Um, son. That hasn’t been a temple since before the Scattering. It became a prison, one of the most severe in the empire. A lot of really bad people were sent there. During the food blockade from Mandibos, there were riots. Supplies meant for the prison were rerouted and the inmates starved. No one ever left again through its front gates.”
Tashi nodded and kept munching. “My master mentioned something about the food problems. They got worse over the years, until he was forced to leave. He only mentioned it because I asked him about the brand on his shoulder. He keeps his hair long to conceal it.”
Nigel was incredulous. “He escaped? Your master’s an escaped convict from the vilest prison in the world?”
Tashi assessed the statement as substantially accurate and nodded again.
“Doesn’t this raise any doubts in your mind ashis trustworthiness?”
The sheriff seemed puzzled by this correlation. “No.”
“What hold does he have over you that you’re so unwaveringly loyal?”
Tashi rubbed the side of his head. “I remember nothing of my old life. I was injured unto death, and he brought me back with his miracles. My master protected my life with the sacred glyphs until I could practice the disciplines on my own to reinforce the wards.”
“Who injured you?” the actor asked sympathetically.
“I’m told I was betrayed by my own people,” the sheriff said, downcast.
“I’m sure you were betrayed by someone, young man. The only question remaining is by whom. Did you ever once think that you don’t remember because he cast this evil, magic spell on you?” Nigel prodded, trying to get the gullible sheriff to reason for himself.
“Impossible. He’d never do such a thing.”
Nigel saw a weakness and attacked it. “But you admit he cast a spell on you and uses black magic.”
“Miracles, not magic,” Tashi insisted. “And there’s nothing black about it.”
The actor looked about as if to an invisible audience to support his claim. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have an admission to practice of ancient magic, of a kind banned by the emperor and every civilized king and church in the world, which is the very definition of black. Yet he cannot admit the two words together.”
“You twist words like a lawyer,” grumbled the sheriff.
“What is this? Hatred of lawyers when you love the law?” mocked Nigel. When Tashi didn’t respond, but raised an eyebrow, the actor conceded, “All right, I’ll grant you that one. No one can admit to love of lawyers, not even their mothers. But you must concede to being a victim of black magic wielded by a desperate criminal.”
Tashi shook his head. “I yield no such admission. Even if my master is a black magician and a criminal under the narrowest possible definition, that does not make his spells on me evil.”
“Fair enough,” Nigel said, thoroughly enjoying their philosophical courtroom. “We’ll judge the spell by its results and the man by his deeds. What’s he commanded you to do in repayment?”
“Only to help him,” Tashi said weakly. Nigel motioned with his hand to elaborate. The swordsman struggled a few moments with his words. “Well, I don’t claim to understand all of it. His mission is to find the Traveler and right some old wrongs.”
“Power and revenge. These have been the goals of evil wizards throughout time,” Nigel said, satisfied that his point was been proven.
“Would you stop calling him that?!” Tashi said, irked. “We’ve been scouring all of the old holy sites, gleaning what we can from them and using the knowledge to guide our next steps.”
“That sounds tame and scholarly enough. Why are the hunters at your heels?”
Tashi grimaced. “The latest batch is after me because I killed their boss and took something from the shrine.”
“Boss?”
“Lord Kragen,” Tashi explained.
This made Nigel chuckle even louder. “Your teacher sends you to kill lords, steal Honor, and defile temples in his name?”
“You’re twisting my words again,” Tashi protested.
“Your words are evidence, my friend, running as straight as a farmer’s furrow. It is your thinking which has become twisted,” insisted the old traveler.
Tashi’s eyes narrowed. “I will not listen to a cleaner of outhouses slur the reputation of a great man whom he has never even met.”
The actor bristled at this verbal missile, but then recognized it as yet another misplaced virtue. Clearly, the walls around his master were too well-guarded to be overcome by a frontal assault. Fortunately, even the best walls could be sapped at the foundations by one who had the skills.
“Then I’ll ask only one more thing. What’s your master doing while you are wreaking twisted justice on this world?” asked Nigel, picking food from between his teeth.
“He is searching for a very special, young boy, an innocent. Once he finds the child, they’ll meet me at the Seer’s Temple. They may be waiting for me already,” explained the sheriff.
Violating his promise, the actor pushed further. “What makes this child special?”
The voices from the abbot that Tashi had been fighting during the debate answered this question before he could even consider it. “A sacrifice.”
Nigel’s face hardened, and darkened. “I see, sir, we have a different definition of the word evil. I shan’t trouble you further on the matter.” Tashi, on the other hand, had trouble enough wrestling with himself. Where had this knowledge come from and what did it mean?
Chapter 18 – Like a Thief in the Night
Jotham the Tenor located an ox that would suit his needs; indeed, it was the only ox left within the walls of the quarantine zone. The animal was a little malnourished, but it could walk at a reasonable pace and carry a burden as light as the boy for as long as necessary.
When approached, the merchant who owned the ox moaned, “I can’t leave until the priests show up to bless me. They have to certify me free of plague and accept my sacrifice to Semenos. My quarantine period’s over, but who knows when they’ll be back?”
“I’m leaving for Cardinado tonight,” Jotham
noted. “I could take your offering there myself. You needn’t wait for the others.”
“But who’ll sign my travel papers?”
“As it happens, I’m also a vested priest with a signet ring. We could exchange papers giving me responsibility for delivering the offering, and you’ll be beyond blame.”
“How do I know you won’t just steal the ox for yourself?”
“yself. Yhands are clean either way,” said the priest, giving the man the answer he wanted to hear. In reality, no mortal would be so foolish as to steal a gift made to the gods, and no priest would place his signet upon a vow he intended to break.
They shook hands on the deal and drew up the documents.
Under cover of darkness, the night-sighted priest guided the merchant and animal across the river. They parted ways on the far side of the waters, the merchant complaining about his cold, wet boots and how much of the fair he’d already missed.
Once out of earshot, Brent asked from the back of the ambling ox, “Why aren’t we sleeping?”
“Are you tired?” asked the Tenor in return.
“No, but it seems the reasonable thing to do,” answered the boy.
“A freed mind needs to sleep only one seventh of the day. I get by on three hours, usually under a pine bough during the worst of the noon heat. Doesn’t it seem more reasonable to avoid being burned by the sun’s glare?” Brent conceded the point. “If you feel the need to rest due to your recent illness, do so. The saddle is wide and I won’t let you fall.”
“Jotham,” said the boy as they left the woods he had known his entire life. “Thank you.”
There’s hope for the world yet, thought the priest.