What Was Forgotten

by Tim Mathias

  Only when he reached the basement did Osmun think that he had not been led there, but rather he had been guided there; Myron had walked behind him the entire way. Odd, but Osmun would not blame him for being cautious.

  “This seems a bit elaborate for a root,” Osmun said.

  “I agree,” Myron said. “You and I know that it’s just a root, but the law says it is banned because it is used in Ivesian shamanism.”

  Halfway down the stairs, Osmun looked over his shoulder. “Is it?” Of course it was.

  Myron shrugged. “If I ever meet an Ivesian shaman, I’ll ask.”

  The cellar was dark. There was only one torch lit, and its flame had nearly gone out. All around the small room were wooden crates stacked haphazardly on top of one another, some only still upright from leaning against others. There were a few chairs that looked dramatically out of place; the polished wood gleamed even in the dimness of the room, and as Osmun approached them he could smell the richness of the leather. The room was as much a mixture of peculiarities as Myron himself.

  “Go ahead and take a seat,” Myron said as he walked to a door on the far side of the room. “You look like you could use a rest.” Osmun sat, and the sensation reminded him of standing in the warmth of the fire of Tumanger’s shop. He would remember to procure chairs of this kind when he became a cleric.

  Myron came back a few moments later with two cups of tea. “You look like you could use this,” Myron said as he handed a cup to Osmun and sat in a chair facing him. “Are you hungry?”

  “You are awfully charitable to a man you don’t think is a beggar.” The tea smelled sweet and inviting. He took a few sips and found it surprisingly nourishing.

  Myron sipped at his own drink. “Well, we’ve already established that you aren’t. But that’s no reason for me to be a rude host.”

  Osmun was uncertain how to direct the conversation. He had no use for the root – he needed to find someone who did have use for it, an Ivesian, preferably. An Ivesian who might know Nasiri.

  “Should we discuss the… the…” Osmun trailed off. The combination of the tea and the chair had relaxed him to a state he had not felt since before the trial. “I must be more tired than I thought.”

  Myron laughed and sipped his tea as he watched Osmun. He looked amused.

  “I think… I think…”

  “That was faster than I thought,” Myron said. He stood and took the cup from Osmun’s feeble grasp.

  What was this? Osmun looked around the room, but even his vision was clouding. He expected to see the shadow lurking somewhere. This had to be its trickery.

  Myron grabbed Osmun’s face in one hand and shook his head from side to side. “Are you nice and comfortable?” Osmun could not respond. He could barely even move his eyes and he felt himself being crushed under the immense weight of his own powerlessness. “Good,” Myron said.

  Every form in his vision was dissolving into a muddled blur, but Osmun could sense another figure had joined them in the room. He could not see a face, only a skulking darkness steadily approaching him.

  Feelings returned slowly. His arms and legs tingled with numbness. He tried to stir them from what felt like a long hibernation, but they hardly obeyed. Though his head was swimming, sight and sound returned gradually as well, and before long he could tell he was in a basement somewhere, seated in a chair.

  He was tied to it.

  He moved his head from side to side and felt a wave of nausea. Where was he? His memory was a wall of fog, and trying to recall what had led him to this place, wherever it was, was like trying to remember the details of a vague dream. He looked around the room but his vision was blurry and he could hardly discern any details of his surroundings at all. The door creaked open as if to answer, and two figures entered the room.

  “I think he is awake.” It was a woman’s voice.

  “We might do well to wait a while longer,” a man said. Osmun recognized the voice, but… could not place how. “He may still be somewhat useless.”

  “We cannot wait longer. Ask him now.”

  A pause. “Fine.”

  There was tension there, Osmun noticed. He blinked and squinted as he tried to focus on them, to no effect. The man walked over and stood in front of the chair, arms folded.

  “Who are you after?”

  “Who are you?” Osmun asked as he struggled against his restraints. “Are you Ardent? Why am I tied up?

  “Ah, I should’ve expected this. I’m Myron, do you remember me from earlier? You were asking after an Ivesian root and you were having a tough time of it. You came back here and had tea, and there was black bear’s root in it, which makes you sleep like the dead. Unfortunately it also makes you forget the last few hours or more, depending on how much you have. Now, I consider myself something of a risk-taker, so I’m going to make a wild guess that you are not actually after the black bear’s root, were you? You are after someone, yes?”

  “No, no one. I was looking for the root.” He felt the sharp edge of a blade against his hand.

  “I don’t want to cut your fingers off, but I want to be lied to even less. Now tell me who you’re after.”

  “An Ivesian,” Osmun said, thinking he could get through this using partial truths.

  Another pause. Myron glanced over his shoulder before he asked the next question.

  “Are there any other Ardent who know where you are?”

  Osmun laughed, Myron put pressure on the blade.

  “Will you be laughing when I start to cut?”

  “I might, I can’t feel my hands.”

  “Let’s find out.”

  “I’m not Ardent!” Osmun shouted. He sounded like a drunk, but it preempted Myron from slicing into his hand. “You really thought I was one of them?”

  “Who else would be asking for an outlawed substance in such clumsy manner?”

  “You thought I was one of them, and you brought me right here to your hiding spot. What a stupid thing to do.”

  “You’ve been looking for us for months.” There was less confidence in his voice.

  “Maybe they have. I haven’t. But at least this works in your favour. When you do come across any of them, keep your idiot mouth quiet.”

  “I told you,” said the other voice.

  “We needed to find out how many of them were looking for us,” Myron replied.

  “He’s not one of them. He’s not Ardent.”

  “He’s lying! Of course he is. Why else would he be asking for you?”

  Osmun held his breath. He thought he misheard. But she stepped forward into focus and bent over to be face to face with him. He was uncertain at first; it had been years since he had seen her, but he saw her father’s features on her. She was skinny and tall with rounded cheekbones and large, brown eyes. Her long brown hair was tied in a complex braid and hung over her right shoulder. There was a faint scar that ran from her left temple down to her jaw. It was her, unmistakably. He wondered, with such striking features, how she could have remained hidden for so long.

  “If you are not Ardent, then who are you?” Nasiri asked.

  Even though this was who he had come to find, Osmun still could not immediately bring himself to explain all the things that had happened. They still seemed surreal to him, even then.

  “I am… was a priest,” Osmun said. Hearing the words out loud gave them a new authority. No longer a priest… only temporarily, he reassured himself. “I need your skill. A skill that I hope you have. If you don’t, then……” Then there was nowhere to turn next. No one left to help him. “Then I suppose you can do what you will with me, though I have no interest in turning you over to the Ardent. In truth, I think they’re after me by now, too.”

  “What skill?” Nasiri asked.

  “I have divine sight. I can commune with spirits and I can send them from this world. But there is one… one spirit that will not go. It came through a rift that we created, and now it stalks me and others in the city. As though this is its
home. It is beyond my control. I need to know how to create a rift that I might send it back.”

  “What makes you think that if you make a rift, your stalker will go through?”

  “I will make it.” There was no doubt in Osmun’s voice. “Do you have this skill, and will you teach me?”

  Nasiri moved her jaw from side to side as she stared at Osmun. “I will not help you for nothing,” she said. “There is something I want. After you get it, I will help you banish this… stalker.”

  “Have you heard of such a thing before?” Myron cut in.

  “No,” Nasiri shook her head. “But it followed him here.”

  It was hours later when Nasiri undid the ropes holding Osmun to the chair. Myron had been gone for a time but had come back.

  “I still don’t trust you,” Nasiri said. “I know you know my father and mother, but that does not matter to me.”

  They talked over food, and Osmun ate ravenously. It was simple enough – bread, fish, and dried fruit, but to him it was a feast. They sat facing each other on a few old cushions that were laid out on the cold stone floor of the basement.

  “Do you believe me?” he asked them as they ate.

  “On certain things,” Nasiri said.

  “You’re definitely not Ardent,” Myron said, his mouth full. “You were right; they are after you. Did you really poison a fellow priest?”

  “No! How could you even know about that?”

  “It’s what I do. It pays to know things. Or rather, I pay to know things.”

  “Well, I did not poison anyone, and you don’t have to pay me for that knowledge.”

  “Why did you think I could help you?” Nasiri asked.

  Osmun shrugged. “It was a guess. I remember when Tumanger had told me that one day you ran away. You never truly accepted the Beacon as the truth. I understand that, I suppose. I know that those cultures we conquer don’t truly believe…… even though they say they do.”

  Nasiri leaned forward. “You never conquered Ivesia.”

  “No. Of course not. But for you to come here, you had to make certain vows: to declare that the Beacon is the truth faith. Your mother and father believe. He told me that you never abandoned the rituals of your home.” Osmun shoved the last of his bread into his mouth and picked up another piece from the plate on the floor between them. “I had thought you would have gone back to Ivesia.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  Osmun stopped chewing. “Why would you stay here? If you detest the faith that the Empire is founded on…”

  Nasiri had stopped eating, and she looked at Osmun and bit her lower lip. He could tell she wanted to tell him why she had stayed. There must have been a reason; perhaps it was to preach her own gospel or simply to work to undermine the authority of the Xidian Church. Whatever is was, she wanted to tell him, he could see. But she wouldn’t. Maybe with trust, and still, maybe not. Seeing anger welling within her, he decided to change the subject.

  “You saw the shadow for yourself… what did you make of it?”

  Nasiri looked around the room before she answered, slowly and intently. For a moment Osmun thought she may not answer his question at all. “Very unusual,” she said at last. “Where did it come from?”

  “Two clerics made the rift in the Great Cathedral. A room, in the basement. Walls made of iron.”

  “Seems to be an awfully foolish thing to do,” Myron said as he lay back onto one elbow. “It’s a wonder these things are drifting around the city like evil little rain clouds.”

  “Maybe they are,” Osmun said. “How would you know?”

  Myron did not answer; he just smiled and sipped at his small cup of wine.

  “I did not mean where you made the rift, priest,” Nasiri said. “They made a rift to where?” Osmun was confused by the question. Did she not understand the nature of the boundaries between this world and the Beyond? Did she not know how to repair the borders to close off that world from this one? Perhaps she would not be able to help him at all…

  “A rift to where? It can only be to one place. The realm of the dead, the world of mist, the Beyond… it can only be to one place.”

  Nasiri’s mouth was agape. “Is that what they teach you? How can your learned men believe the world to be so simple as that? There are other places than what we can see, places other than this, other than what you see when you close your eyes.”

  “Is that right?” Osmun nearly laughed. “Have you ever created a rift?”

  Nasiri sat upright at the question. “Yes, I have. Many times.”

  “To somewhere other than the Beyond?”

  She remained silent.

  “Then how can you make such a claim?” he asked when she did not answer.

  “My people wrote of it. The famous Ivesian scholar Ashar Abarin wrote that these other realms could exist all near to each other, like crossing the same river at different points. Ashar wrote that some points of crossing are easier to see, almost plain to see, sometimes. In other spots it is difficult to cross, or nearly impossible.”

  “The Beacon himself wrote of a river, but not of crossings,” Osmun said. “The river should run, can run only one way. This is the way it is in nature. Our spirits flow from this world to the Beyond as a river runs from high ground to low. Those spirits that remain here or fight against the current are aberrations, and it is a holy duty for those like me to send them back.”

  Nasiri waved a hand in the air and looked away. “As I said… simple-minded foolishness.”

  “Myron, you are a Trueborn… you must know that the Xidian teaching is true.”

  “How can anyone say that with any certainty?” Myron shrugged. “Shall we discount the possibility of it because of the writings of one preacher?”

  Osmun nodded slowly. It made sense to him now; they were of the same mind. Perhaps this is why she stayed after all: to convert people to the heretical Ivesian teachings. Maybe he even believed willingly, or maybe he yearned after her and said such inane things to be closer to her.

  “Have either of you put Abarin’s theories into practice?” Osmun emphasized the word to support his point. “Have you crossed the river to somewhere other than the Beyond?” Nasiri and Myron both stared at him but said nothing. Myron sipped again at his wine. His overconfidence had been replaced by humility for the first time –– something that should happen more often, Osmun noted. “I thought not. Even Abarin himself expressed doubt that such a discovery could be achieved.”

  “Say what you will about what has been written,” Nasiri said, “but there is something following you which you cannot explain. Nothing in your texts to help you combat it. Even your much-lauded skill, Osmun, has helped you not at all. So scoff if you like, but this shadow could be from a place we have not yet encountered. A place that Abarin thought could exist.”

  “That can’t be,” Osmun said, shaking his head. “Andrican and Egus…… the clerics who created the rift… for what you’re saying to be true, they would then have to know how to create a rift to one of these other places. They’ve been taught as I have: that there is only this world and the Beyond. Nothing else.”

  “Think what you like, priest. It may have come here through the Beyond… but where did it come from before that?”

  There was a long silence as they all sat there with unanswerable questions hanging about them. For Osmun, there were even more than what was said. Why could she see the shadow and the clerics could not? Did it choose to whom it could reveal itself? There was the ubiquitous question of its purpose, its goal, but Osmun had abandoned the notion that he would ever discern that.

  It was only after all of the food had been eaten that Nasiri finally brought up what the price would be for her assistance.

  “Do you know where the Compendium is?” she asked.

  “More or less. I’ve seen the entrance. I’m guessing that you have not.”

  “No, I never got that close. Don’t look so surprised. I was being tutored for a time, a very
brief time, before I allowed myself to be who I was meant to be. I had heard talk of the Compendium. Hushed whispers, mostly. The priests don’t like to talk about where the secrets are kept when outsiders are present. Anyone who is not a Trueborn, even someone like me who has gone through the Affirmations, they do not trust.”

  “You did end up rejecting their faith and renouncing your Affirmation,” Myron said, smirking. “I don’t know if you can really complain about them not trusting you.”

  “I don’t know much more about it than you do,” Osmun said. “The historians keep records of the Empire’s conquests.”

  “They keep relics of the conquered,” Nasiri said, not a question, though Osmun sensed her uncertainty.

  “Some relics, yes, from what I’ve heard. Usually, once the historians have studied the relics and done their writings, the relics are destroyed.”

  Nasiri nodded and smiled. “I was hoping that was true, because I want you to go into the Compendium and find something.”

  Osmun could not stop himself from laughing. “Get into the Compendium? I’m afraid that’s quite impossible. Even if I wasn’t suspected of murdering a member of the church, and even if I still had my title as a priest, I could not get into the Compendium. The historians and the elders are the only ones who have the authority to enter that room at will.”

  “That sounds challenging,” Nasiri said, ignoring Osmun’s protest.

  “Did you hear me? It’s not challenging. It’s impossible.”

  “You should hope not, because this is the cost of my knowledge. You came to me. If you cannot do this for me, I am no worse off than I am. But you… how many safe places can you go? Here, I think, is the safest place you have. Without us, the Ardent will find you.”

  “You’re not concerned that I might tell them about this place if they caught me?” Osmun asked.