The Unremembered

by Peter Orullian

  Braethen stared as understanding grew inside him. “Then each time you draw on the Will, you die a little?”

  Vendanj said nothing, but Mira’s eyes answered Braethen plainly. “Joining this cause may hold a price for you, too.” She stopped, the sound of her words replaced by the yowl of coyotes in the prairies to the west and the crackle of pine boughs in the fire between them.

  Braethen’s hand tightened instinctively on his blade. “When I raised this … I was caught in darkness.”

  Mira shared a look with Vendanj. The Sheason then gave Braethen a reassuring nod. “It will take time for you to understand how to use it. Be patient. This blade is about remembering. And the fold that exists between now and then.”

  “Then I was stuck in the fold,” Braethen figured.

  “That’s as good a way of saying it as any.” Vendanj took a deep breath. “We need our rest. We have a longer route to Recityv than the others.”

  “By way of the Scar?” Braethen said.

  “And before that, Widows Village.” Vendanj’s voice became thoughtful, soft. “We have names to record.…”

  The Sheason lay down and soon his breathing slowed. But Braethen’s mind would not be quieted. He thought only of the fold between now and then.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Tenendra

  If you can’t find it in a tenendra camp, you don’t need it.

  —Familiar call of the tenendra barker

  The land and sky turned bronze as the sun fell toward night. Shadows lengthened and the hazy light of end of day stretched over the full-bellied roll of the land north of the High Plains. The trees became dark shapes, and the whir of cricket song came as the stars rose again.

  But Tahn and Sutter didn’t fully stop until Sutter fell from his saddle.

  Tahn jumped from his horse’s back, taking care to lessen the impact on his damaged foot. He got to Sutter’s side. His friend lay on his stomach, his nose in the dirt, the spiked ball bloody and still protruding from his back. But the bleeding was relatively light. Sutter’s fall wasn’t from loss of blood.

  “I feel weak.” Sutter’s words came too soft.

  Something on the spikes?

  Tahn looked around, panic mounting. There was no help in sight.

  “Let’s sleep here,” Sutter said. Something in his voice struck Tahn’s mind like a warning. Don’t let him sleep. Keep him talking.

  “How about you stand your lazy ass up? I could use some help. My foot’s killing me.” Tahn jostled his friend.

  Sutter managed to look up with a tired smile. “Ah, Woodchuck, stuff that swollen foot of yours into your mouth so I can’t hear you complain.”

  Tahn needed to get Sutter back on his horse. But he’d never do it still hobbled by these spines in his foot. He gently removed his boot and stocking. The coppery smell of blood rose from the wool sock. In the dim twilight, his wound didn’t appear too serious. He slowly probed the sole of his foot, wincing when his fingers brushed the entry marks.

  “How about some help with this little prize in my back?” Sutter spoke from behind Tahn, his words slurring a bit.

  “I think it suits you fine. I say we leave it for a while and see if it grows on you.”

  Sutter laughed, and immediately groaned. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts too much.”

  “Never thought I’d hear those words from you.” Tahn stood on his one good foot.

  “Only when you’re telling the joke, Woodchuck. Now, about my back.”

  Tahn drew his knife and used it to pry the ball loose. It rolled to the ground with a thud. Sutter bit back a curse as Tahn tucked a cloth in Sutter’s shirt to cover the wound. “Good as new. You’ll be stooped over the dirt again in no time.”

  Sutter returned a wry half smile and stood. The pain seemed to have dispelled some of whatever had gotten into his blood. Tahn sat and took a drink from his waterskin, then washed his foot.

  “Ah, my hells!” Tahn exclaimed.

  “What you whining about now?”

  “I can’t even see the spines. They’re too deep inside.” Tahn continued to probe, grimacing as he touched each buried needle.

  “I can get them out,” Sutter said. “But your cries will be heard all the way back to the Hollows if I do it.” Sutter’s lips tugged into a lopsided grin.

  “It’s all those marvelous years plucking twigs from the ground that qualifies you to do surgery on my foot. Is that it?” Tahn waved a dismissive hand. “Forget it. I’d rather burn the foot off. It’d be less painful.”

  “Your will is your own, Woodchuck.” Sutter made a show of two good feet by stomping down hard on the ground. “My father taught me how to use a short knife to remove the slivers a professional rootdigger such as myself is bound to get working the soil. And those spines are a great deal larger than thorns I’ve coaxed from my hands.”

  “Do you have some balsam root to dull the pain?” Tahn asked.

  “I think there’s a bit left if your womanly foot is too delicate.”

  Tahn smiled defeat through gritted teeth. “Find the balsam root.”

  As Sutter looked through the saddlebags, Tahn had his first moment of quiet and calm since they’d entered the mists of Je’holta.

  He looked west, as though he might see Wendra even now in her own flight from the Quiet. Only the hues of sunset there. He thought of her, of the simple life they’d led in the Hollows, of the awful moment of her childbirth.…

  He chastised himself for allowing the mists to get inside his mind, send him fleeing recklessly away from his friends. He wanted to go back and find them, make sure Wendra was safe. He owed her that much.

  But he needed to get Sutter and himself to a healer. And he wasn’t sure which way to go.

  With unexpected suddenness he missed Mira. He’d become accustomed to the sureness with which she moved and spoke and knew what to do. He’d grown used to her certainty. He missed her small smile.

  Sutter returned, hefting two roots in his hand. “Here,” he said, and threw one at Tahn.

  The root hit him in the stomach. “Such compassion.”

  Tahn stripped the shoots from the main root, then broke it in two. He ate the first half, grimacing at the bitter taste.

  “You’re a picture of loveliness,” Sutter said, pulling a short knife from his own boot.

  “And you’re a credit to dirt everywhere, Nails—” Tahn gagged on the root. He forced himself to swallow.

  “Eat the other half,” Sutter admonished. “It’s a thin root. You’ll want it all if the pain is as bad as you’re making it look.”

  Tahn frowned and put the second half in his mouth.

  “Chew it,” Sutter said. “It works faster that way.” Sutter took his own root and gobbled it up.

  Tahn bit into the balsam and quickly chewed it into small pieces before swallowing. “How long until you can start?”

  “The balsam won’t dull the pain of getting them out, just the throb once we’re done.” Sutter was slurring his words again.

  “Come here,” Tahn said. “Let me check your back.”

  Sutter turned. “Why?”

  Tahn slapped Sutter’s wound, eliciting a yowl. “What, in all hells, was that about?”

  “You’re slurring your words and your hands are trembling. Something was on those spikes. The sting keeps you sharp. Now, get these spines out, and try not to enjoy causing me pain. Then let’s find us both some help.”

  A look of disbelief on his friend’s face quickly changed to worry. Sutter sat, lifting Tahn’s foot to the last light of day. The smile left Nails’s face as he carefully put the blade against one thumb and started on the punctures near the toes. His friend folded back a flap of skin, and pressed the knife into the wound. Exquisite pain shot up Tahn’s leg. He muzzled a cry, and in a second, Sutter lifted the first spine for Tahn to see.

  “Not bad for a rootdigger, wouldn’t you say?” Sutter commented, though his face held no hint of humor.

  Tahn gritted his teeth a
gainst the next operation. One by one Sutter removed the other spines, and as he did he began to speak in a faraway voice. But this, Tahn thought, wasn’t the poison on the spiked ball, but remembrance.

  “This was my father’s knife when he was a boy,” Sutter said, holding up the bloodied blade with another spine dug from Tahn’s foot. “He gave it to me when I saw my tenth Northsun. Told me a good knife and a bit of root knowledge was all a man needed.”

  “He’s a good man,” Tahn offered.

  “I know.” Sutter nodded, returning to his task. “Was always good to me. Never said a bad word about the parents that left me. Never asked more or less of me than he did of Garon.” Sutter was quiet a moment, as if thinking of his stepbrother. “He needs me on that farm,” he said, mostly to himself.

  Tahn heard guilt beneath the words.

  “We’ll go home eventually,” Tahn assured him.

  Sutter looked up and caught Tahn’s eyes, a question passing unspoken between them: Neither of them knew if they’d ever get home again. His friend worked another spine out of Tahn’s foot. Then he stopped, and stared at the knife. “It wasn’t for shame of him or my mother that I never said anything about being adopted, Tahn. I want you to know that. Never of them. It was … it was the parents who left me to begin with. That’s what I didn’t want.… I love my father, my mother. I wanted to come with you, yes, but I love them … I do.”

  “You’re a good son to them.”

  “Am I?” Tahn’s friend squeezed back sudden tears. “They don’t deserve the hardship of that farm without my help.” Then softer, “Maybe Vendanj was right. Maybe putting my hands in the loam should have been noble enough.”

  Sutter’s words were painfully clear. No poison, Tahn thought, could have dulled them.

  “Your secret may be new to me,” Tahn said, “but it’s not the reason you left the Hollows. Remember what Vendanj said. Staying there would have put them in danger.” Sutter looked up. Tahn nodded. “They know you love them.”

  In the dying light, Sutter looked at Tahn a long moment, then nodded. Soon, his grimy face showed the vaguest hint of a smile.

  “Now, can we get on with it?” Tahn concluded, pulling them out of the past. Sutter’s smile came on full.

  The two last spines felt as though they slid from bone deep inside his foot. The pain in Tahn’s sole was excruciating. When Sutter finished, Tahn’s body fell limp. His foot throbbed while his friend gently wrapped it with several lengths of cloth torn from the hem of his shirt. Nails then helped him into his saddle, and the two friends turned east and rode hard enough that the jouncing of their mounts kept their pain fresh.

  * * *

  The terrain undulated in long, rolling hills and vales. As night became complete they came upon a road stretching north and south. Tahn looked both directions, as Sutter handed him another balsam root.

  “Eat and be well, Woodchuck.” This time his friend’s words slurred badly.

  “Your face is pain enough to need this bitter medicine.”

  “You’re feeling better, I can tell. Any thoughts?” Sutter pointed up and down the road.

  “Yeah,” Tahn replied. “But your face would still be ugly.” Tahn looked both directions again and turned north. After another hour, they crested a low rise and found a town nestled in a narrow valley. Firelight flickered in windows like light-flies, and people ambled along the streets. A few rode in overland carriages—the type built strong for long journeys that might encounter highwaymen.

  At the far end of the town, several large tents glowed like the hollow gourds fitted with candles at the commencement of Passat each Midwinter. But these were grand tents, decorated with stripes that flowed from their pinnacles to the ground. Tahn could see six tents in all, and from a distance could hear the thrum of voices and activity. People were entering and exiting like bees coming and going from a hive. And in the air hung the scent of animals sharing close quarters.

  “A tenendra?” Sutter asked.

  “Looks like it,” Tahn said. “I’ve never seen one.”

  “My father says they’re low entertainment, unworthy of coin.” But Sutter’s eyes were alight with curiosity. “I don’t suppose it would hurt to test the wisdom of our elders.” His smile was lopsided, as though the left side of his face was numb.

  Tahn looked back at the brightly lit town below. He wanted to see the tenendra. Stories of the feats and wonders exhibited at such events were widely known. And the bright tents looked warm and welcoming, the kind of thing he and Sutter had talked about finding ever since he could remember.

  But more importantly, they needed a healer.

  “We’ll go,” he concluded. “But we find a healer first. And remember there’s no one to stand behind us if you rile up trouble.”

  “You couldn’t even stand behind me, gimpy,” Sutter mocked. “Come on, before we miss all the fun.”

  But Sutter looked unsteady in his saddle. They were running out of time. Whatever had gotten inside him had gone deeper, and would continue to do so.

  Sutter clucked at his horse and Tahn hurried to catch up.

  * * *

  Tahn led Sutter through the center of town. To his surprise, no one seemed to take note of them. Men and women crossed in front of their horses without care. More than once, he and Sutter slowed or wound their way around pedestrians who stopped to share a greeting or an insult with one another. Even through his stupor, Sutter gave Tahn a look of delighted, unrestrained glee as comic as the scop masks they’d seen in Myrr. But his friend’s eyelids drooped, giving him the look of one deep in his cup of bitter.

  They needed to hurry.

  The varied fashions made it clear that the town hosted travelers from near and far. Every third building either let rooms or announced itself as a full-service inn to this town called Squim. Brightly painted signs nailed to building façades listed what could be purchased within and at what price. More than a few led their menu with blandishments like “Fairest Anais east of the Sedagin,” and more plainly, “Bed Company.”

  And if there were a lot of inns, there were scads of taverns. Loud laughter and the sound of challenge poured from open doors, and the jangling strains of poorly tuned citherns and badly carved pipes and flutes floated on the air. Each of the taverns had one or two large men sitting near doors propped open for ventilation. Dull expressions hung on their faces, and their massive arms rested in their laps. The Hollows’ own Fieldstone Inn had never needed such men to control clientele, but Tahn felt sure that was precisely these fellows’ purpose.

  Most of the buildings were wood, built with little care for appearance. Rough, ill-fitted planks showed slices of the light within. Narrow alleys ran alongside many of the shops and passed through to secondary streets. Shadowy forms huddled in the darkness of those alleys, the wink of lit tobacco stems flaring orange in the dark.

  They passed a long building with multiple entrances, each lined with signs two strides high. The signs were large slabs of slate. Upon the black surface long lists of sundry items were scrawled in white chalk. As Tahn and Sutter passed, a short man with thinning hair and wearing an apron bustled out and used a cloth to erase a number of items on two of the slates.

  Men and women in various states of agitation entered the store. Tahn watched some who carried wrapped parcels, whose heads twitched around nervously as they passed through the doors. A few women went in looking distressed and mournful, their gait halting as they neared the entry. One woman strode briskly up to the door, her face heavily painted and her bosom threatening to free itself from its constraining bodice. She carried a man’s belt over her shoulder like a hunter returning with game-hide. The buckle glinted in the light from the shop’s windows, casting shards of blue and violet and red on the ground behind her. She disappeared inside without a backward glance.

  “What is that place?” Sutter asked.

  “I would guess it’s some kind of skiller’s shop.”

  Without realizing it, they’d stopped in
the street to watch the traffic in and out of the many doors to the long store. Dirty men with knotted beards carried soiled bundles into the place. At one point, Tahn was saddened to see a young boy and girl sneak into the first door on bare feet, holding something together in their small hands.

  They got moving.

  Further into town, narrow streets were filled with horses hitched to posts and overland wagons unloading large barrels and chests. People gathered together in storefronts and windows, their shadows falling in long, jagged shapes across the road.

  The byways were dry, and from their shadows emboldened beggars reached up toward the street’s edge to harangue passersby, their cant like so much iturgy. The repetition of their pitches soon combined into a deafening roar that made Tahn want to cover his ears.

  That’s when Tahn saw it: Body Healer, the sign read.

  Tahn and Sutter moved as fast as their injuries allowed, hitching their horses with double knots in this questionable place, and going right in. A diminutive man with stubby fingers and thick spectacles sat in a chair against the back wall. Seeing them, he said simply, “You pay first,” and pointed.

  A metal box with a thin slot in its top stood bolted to the floor in the corner.

  “Three handcoins. I’ll need to see them first.” The little man waddled over and looked up at them.

  “How do we know you can help us?” Sutter slurred.

  “Sounds like you just need to sleep off some bitter, except your eyes look funny. Come now, my fee.”

  Tahn found the payment and showed the healer, who snatched up the money and rushed to put it into his box. His face lit in delight at the clanging sound of the coins as they rattled inside his vault. He then turned back toward them. “Okay, what ails you?”

  Tahn looked at Sutter, who began to weave now that he’d come to a full stop. “Get him a chair.”

  The healer scooted a seat up behind Sutter, who sat heavily.

  Tahn considered what to say. He didn’t think he had time to lie. He didn’t know what was at work in his friend’s body, and caution might kill him.