The Book of Words

by J. V. Jones

  Then, when his blade was ready to slit the boy’s throat, Melli had screamed and lit a lamp.

  The scream and the light were two things he would be forever grateful for. Not only had Melli sent Nabber to deliver Bevlin’s letter, but she had also prevented the greatest tragedy of all. Yes, he and this boy before him were linked together, but Melli was also part of the join.

  Letting go of the boy’s arm, he turned toward Melli. Her face was pale. The lantern trembled in her hand. “I knew you would return,” she said.

  The clear certainty in her voice was the most beautiful thing Tawl had ever heard. This brave and magnificent woman had faith in him. Suddenly nothing mattered except feeling the warmth of her body next to his. Tawl dashed forward, scooping Melli up in his arms. Everything had been made anew; the world was now fresh with joy and light and hope, and the only thing that mattered was the truth. “I love you, ” he murmured into Melli’s dark hair. “That’s what I came back to say.”

  When she replied, “I love you, too,” it was more than his heart could bear. First Bevlin’s forgiveness, then the man he’d searched years for turned up at the end of his blade, and now this. Tawl hugged Melli tightly, his fingers spreading wide to touch all he possibly could. She was real, beautiful, tough as could be, and he couldn’t believe she was his.

  Finally Melli pulled away. “What happened here just now?”

  He suspected she already knew. “I’ve found the one I’ve been searching for.” Tawl glanced at Jack. He was looking toward them, his face unreadable.

  Melli nodded. “Yes. Jack,” she said softly. “Yesterday, he saved my life. Months ago he rescued me from Baralis’ dungeon, and months before that he scared away a robber who was attacking me by the road.” As she spoke, Melli held out her hand and Jack came forward and took it.

  He raised it to his lips. “And you,” he said, looking into the deep blue of her eyes, “dragged me halfway across the forest when you could have left me for dead.”

  Tawl looked from Jack to Melli. His hand followed his eyes, moving gently from shoulder to shoulder. He was glad they knew one another—it seemed right, fitting. It connected everything into a perfect self-contained circle. Tawl did not begrudge their friendship for an instant. Jack looking after Melli, saving her life before Tawl ever knew her, was an unexpected blessing. Jack cared for Melli, and that meant he had a greater ally than he could ever have hoped for. Together they would work for Melli and her child.

  “Tawl,” called Melli softly, “Grift is badly wounded.” Of the three of them she was the least surprised by what had happened. Already, she had moved on to practical matters.

  Tawl pulled a crate forward, stepped onto it, and then swung up through the space where the trapdoor had been. Grabbing his sack, he jumped down and said, “Take me to him.”

  Then, for many hours, Tawl tended Grift. He cleaned his wound with witch hazel, cauterized the broken blood vessels, stitched up the skin, and administered willow-bark tea for fever and inflammation. Later he massaged Grift’s muscles with a fistful of lanolin and gave him a measure of brandy to help him fall asleep.

  By the time he had finished, dawn had broken. Jack and Melli had stayed awake with him, heating the iron, brewing the tea, listening all the while to Grift’s advice. At some point during the night, Nabber had found his way to the cellar. Like Melli, he was strangely unsurprised that the boy in the prophecy had turned up right under their noses. He had nodded wisely and said, “Swift says the only thing worth betting on is the unexpected.”

  He was asleep now, curled up on a pallet in the corner of the large cellar, snoring with all the boundless gusto of youth.

  Bodger had fallen asleep by Grift’s side, and Maybor, far away in a separate chamber all his own, had slept through the entire night. Jack and Melli were still awake, though. Tawl looked at both of them. Melli was exhausted; there were dark circles under her eyes, and her hands were shaking as she folded the last of the blankets. Jack looked tired, too; he sat quietly on a wine barrel, head down, waiting.

  “Let’s get some sleep,” said Tawl, laying his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “It’s too late to talk now. Tomorrow I will tell you everything.”

  Jack looked up. He managed half a smile. “I feel like I’ve been to heaven and hell and all the places in between tonight.”

  Tawl matched his smile. “You’re not the only one,” he said softly.

  Ten

  Tavalisk was eating fish. Not just any old fish, mind, it was the very creature that Gamil had bought him as a pet. The archbishop’s chef had prepared the small fish whole: guts, head, fins, and all. Tavalisk now had the once-aggressive little fish by its tail and was sucking it into his mouth, scraping the scales off with his teeth as he went.

  Once that was done, he swallowed it intact and spat out the scales into a cloth. There! That would certainly teach the little devil not to bite the hand that fed him.

  Footsteps pitter-pattered behind. They were followed by an apologetic cough.

  “Come in, Gamil,” said the archbishop, sighing. “As you see, the door is open.” Every door in the palace was open today. Every door, every window, every coy virgin’s blouse. It was high summer in Rorn and the heat was unrelenting. The city was festering, and even in the hallowed ground of the palace, the smell of fertile, abundant decay was unmistakable.

  As a rule, Tavalisk did not fair well in the heat. His many rolls of flesh became a breeding ground for odors, and the fine silk beneath his armpits grew uncomfortably wet with sweat. At times like this, when even the thought of moving his considerable bulk off the chair was enough to cause discomfort, the archbishop liked to remember back to his far distant past.

  He had not always been a chubby man. In youth he had been beautiful—too beautiful, some had said, with his sensuous lips and smooth skin that never wanted a razor’s edge. When his mother died and he was thrown out on the streets, he was but seven years old. He soon came to learn all the ways that a pretty child could earn money in a city full of priests. He would wait outside the great libraries of Silbur, sitting on the steps close to the important meeting houses where men of influence and men of God met. Here, his strikingly feminine looks would catch the eye of scholars, clerics, and noblemen.

  First three coppers, then two silvers, then one gold to take him home.

  Most young boys hung around the old fish market, the more traditional place for such delicate assignations. But not he. No. Tavalisk knew he was special. Different. He wanted no dealings with the tawdry merchant classes, with shopkeepers who stank of their wares and farmers in town to buy feed. No, he solicited only from the top ranks of Silbur’s society. They smelled better, they washed regularly, they were superior in every way.

  Except for the sex, of course: that was always the same.

  Tavalisk had learnt the value of appearances during his time on the streets. To attract the eyes of the men he most admired, he styled himself anew. He dressed like a nobleman’s son who had fallen upon hard times. He changed his voice, his manners, and his bearing. Affectation came naturally to him, and he soon sloughed off the dirt and manners of the street.

  He would sit outside the library, perhaps with a sketchbook and a length of charcoal, and pretend to be engrossed in high thoughts of art and beauty. Men always approached him. A conversation would take place, followed by a little casual touching—the man always touching him, never the other way around—and then an offer would be made: supper, the man’s apartments. Supper would be a heady affair. The man—drunk on wine, lust, and Tavalisk’s own beauty—would become pathetic; begging for favors, kneeling at his feet. Either that, or he would blow out the candles and show him the whip.

  As the years passed, Tavalisk learned to refuse the whip, learned to tease, to toy with the men, to create obsessions in them. And then to blackmail them.

  Even then he was a hoarder. He saved nearly all of what he earned. Fine clothes were his only expense. Everything else was paid for by his friends. By the
time he was nineteen, his savings had grown to substantial proportions. Money allowed him time to think, and he began to realize two things: one, that his beauty was slowly fading with his youth; and two, that if he was ever to make anything of himself, he would have to shape himself anew. In his current incarnation as a male prostitute he was known to too many people in Silbur.

  As providence would have it, at the exact time that Tavalisk was coming to these conclusions, he met a man who provided him with the perfect solution. He was an aging and infirm priest called Venesay. This man, besides having conveniently poor eyesight, was revered as a great scholar, a man of letters, and a renowned traveler. Tavalisk quickly ingratiated himself with him and soon found that Venesay was interested in a disciple more than a bedmate. Of course, the fact that Tavalisk could warm his bony body at night was an added bonus, but really Venesay yearned for a son.

  Always a chameleon, Tavalisk took on his second persona: surrogate son, pupil, clerical assistant to Venesay.

  Together they traveled the Known Lands. Venesay taught him how to read and write, about philosophy, history, and the Church. It was a comfortable time for Tavalisk, for Venesay was very rich. Fine dining in fine cities fattened him, and servants ever-ready with plump cushions and silken wraps spoiled him. At the same time he developed a taste for luxury, he also renewed his interest in religion.

  Venesay was a high-ranking priest, well thought of wherever he went. He enjoyed the veneration of his inferiors and the respect of his peers. Tavalisk began to crave such adulation for himself.

  One day Venesay announced they were going to travel north, over the ranges and into barbarian territory. People tried to dissuade him, Tavalisk included, but he refused to be put off. There was a great scholar who lived there, a mystic, whom he was anxious to visit.

  The journey took six weeks. The cold was unbearable: it chilled day and night, and the wind was at their heels all the way. Venesay was now too old to sit a horse and was carried through the mountains in a covered cart. By the time they arrived in the northern territories, Tavalisk’s nerves were as bruised as Venesay’s bones.

  The man who Venesay came to see was part priest, part monk, part sorcerer. Rapascus, as he was called, was famed throughout the Known Lands for his learning. Once a priest destined for the episcopate, he had been thrown out of the Church because of his interest in the occult. Exiled from his former land, he settled at the foot of the great Northern Ranges. He lived like a hermit, seeing no one and working himself to death: reading, translating, and reinterpreting holy texts, writing religious poems and commentaries, experimenting with magic and the occult. His keen mind never stopped probing, and his fierce desire for answers allowed him no peace.

  Venesay had long conversations with Rapascus about God. Tavalisk had longer conversations with him about sorcery. It was a time of great awakening for Tavalisk. He discovered that there were more layers to the world than could be seen by the eye, and many more roads to power than achievement alone. When the time came for Venesay to leave, Tavalisk decided not to accompany him. He wanted to stay and learn.

  With the old priest gone, Rapascus became more specific about magic. Instead of the history and morals surrounding sorcery, they spoke of its use and purpose. After Rapascus discovered Tavalisk had a little inborn ability, he taught him a few simple drawings. Months passed, and Tavalisk craved to know more. Rapascus shook his head and said that if greatness was what he craved, then he would have to take another route rather than sorcery’s dark path—he didn’t have the talent for it.

  Tavalisk grew bitter. He knew from reading the great man’s correspondence that there was one to whom he was teaching all his wisdom. One named Baralis. Every week Rapascus would dispatch notebook upon notebook to the young scholar living in Silbur. Whenever a party of merchant traders passed Rapascus’ house, they would bring letters bearing Baralis’ name. Tavalisk would wait until Rapascus slept, then he would read them all.

  One night he read that Baralis intended to visit Rapascus in order to complete his training and learn from the great man firsthand. Tavalisk was instantly jealous: he saw Baralis as a rival, a threat, and a favorite. Why should this person, this young upstart whom Rapascus had never even met, be party to all the wiseman’s teachings? Tavalisk scrambled around on the desktop, searching for Rapascus’ reply. He found a letter addressed to Baralis. It was finished, but unsigned. In it, Rapascus stated that Baralis was welcome to come and see him. He went on to say that he had many books and gifts he would give him, and that he was looking forward to the visit. Then, on the final line he wrote, “By the time you come, I will be alone once more. I have taught my current pupil as much as he is able to know.”

  Tavalisk put down the letter, careful to place it exactly where it had been left. Sitting back in Rapascus’ comfortable chair, he wondered what his next move should be. He wasn’t ready to be ousted just yet. As he thought, Tavalisk absently ran his fingers over a collection of books that were strewn across the desk. His eyes were drawn to a slim leather-bound volume. Gold lettering rubbed onto the spine proclaimed: Poisons, Their Making and Their Uses.

  That night Tavalisk sloughed off his third incarnation as pupil to a wiseman and took on his fourth: poisoner and shaper of his own fate.

  It took Rapascus five weeks to die. Tavalisk, being a novice, was inclined toward caution. Rather a slow, debilitating sickness followed by an almost inevitable death than a quick and suspicious demise. Rapascus hadn’t known a thing—so much for his knowledge of foretelling. In fact, near the end, the wiseman had become rather touching, begging Tavalisk to see to it that his books, his writings, and his possessions were sent to the great library at Silbur. It was his way of reaching out to the Church that had excommunicated him.

  He was also anxious to ensure that certain books and scrolls were sent to the young scholar Baralis. “He is a man of rare genius,” said Rapascus in one of his last lucid moments. “Yet his conscience needs to be shaped. He must learn the value of goodness and mercy. And I hope, with these books I send, to be able to teach him both.”

  Rapascus died the next day.

  The books were never sent. None of them.

  That night Tavalisk rode as fast as a fat man on a horse could ride. He headed to the nearest village, eager to find out if any parties were due to cross the ranges. He was lucky, a caravan of traveling performers was due to leave the following day. With Rapascus’ gold, Tavalisk bribed them to return to the wiseman’s house with him and begin their journey a day later.

  Early the next morning, Tavalisk began to sort through all of Rapascus’ belongings. Space was limited in the caravan, and he could only afford to take the best of Rapascus’ collection. He loaded chests with rare books and scrolls, hating every decision that involved leaving something behind. He would have had it all if he could. Finally, he came to Rapascus’ religious works: his poems, his commentaries, his reinterpretation of the ancient texts. They were a heavy lot, and Tavalisk was just about to leave them when an idea occurred to him. Hastily, he flicked through some of the papers, eyes scanning the works for rare jewels. He found brilliance, insight, faith; great leaps of intellect lay only paragraphs apart from humble affirmations of belief. The man had indeed been a genius.

  Tavalisk promptly repacked the trunk, throwing out many books to make way for Rapascus’ theological works. The books that the wiseman had specifically asked to be sent to Baralis were not discarded, however. Tavalisk would keep them with him to the grave.

  Finally, he was ready to leave. The wagons were loaded up, and the performers were anxious to be on their way. Tavalisk looked around Rapascus’ house one last time. There was an oil lamp still burning on the desk. As he walked toward the door, he picked up the lamp and dropped it on the pile of abandoned manuscripts. They crackled into flame the moment he closed the door.

  By the time they’d ridden to the foothills, the house was burnt to the ground.

  Gamil coughed, bringing the archbishop back to the
present. “Your Eminence seems a little distracted,” he said. “Should I bring you a little something to awaken you?”

  Tavalisk’s hand shot out, catching his aide by the arm. “I am not an invalid to be nursed, Gamil,” he said, releasing his grip. “Now tell me your news and be off.”

  “Highwall’s army is due to arrive in Bren today, Your Eminence.”

  Tavalisk immediately put all thought of the past behind him. The present was what counted. “And Annis? Is that intellectual little city represented in the numbers?”

  “Yes, Your Eminence. Two battalions. Most Annis troops have stayed behind, though. Ever since Queen Arinalda was found lying dead atop an Annis banner, the city has lived in fear of invasion by Kylock’s troops. In fact, just this morning I heard news that the largest part of Kylock’s army was last spotted heading toward Annis, not Bren.”

  Tavalisk made a smacking sound with his lips. “Kylock avenging the death of his dearly beloved mother. How touching.” He poured himself a glass of cool, white wine. “Of course, with Kylock’s troops tied up in Annis, Bren will have a greater fight on its hands. The armies of Highwall are not to be sniffed at.”

  “Certainly not now that Your Eminence has donated so much money to the cause.”

  “Donated!” said Tavalisk, bringing pudgy hand to chest. “No, not donated, Gamil. Loaned. War is just another commodity like grain and rare spices, and it is up to me to invest our money wisely. A war loan to Highwall is just such an investment.”

  Lesson given, the archbishop turned his thoughts to other matters. “If Kylock’s forces are on the move to Annis, then how is he managing to keep Halcus in line?”

  “He’s left a full quarter of his troops in Halcus, Your Eminence. And there are the knights, too. Currently Valdis is as good as running the city of Helch. Tyren has ordered the execution of all the lords and noblemen who insist on attending rites given by the old priests and bishops. He’s keeping the whole thing quiet, but our spies have discovered that he ordered his knights to confiscate the worshipers’ houses, their assets, and their women. We’ve even heard rumors of torture and worse.”