But their water was gone. Their horses had begun to stumble, and behind Braethen one of the mounts lay down, chuffing from its nostrils with the exertion. In a moment, the other two animals had done the same.
Braethen licked dry lips.
“And a sodalist.” Grant’s shadow fell in a long line toward them. “He wears his sword like new shoes.”
Vendanj stared ahead at the exile. “We have news.”
“Of course,” Grant replied, a hint of condescension in his voice. “And you believe it involves me.” The man took several steps closer. Braethen could now see the dark brown of his weathered, sun-worn skin, and the deep lines at the corners of his eyes.
“I do.”
Grant frowned.
“Don’t become what they accused you of,” Vendanj said.
Grant shook his head. “You should let me be.” His words sounded like both command and plea. But also, resignation.
Vendanj began walking toward the man. Mira moved with the Sheason, her hand resting on her sword in an unthreatening way. Braethen followed.
Several days’ growth of beard peppered Grant’s jaw. Vendanj took the man by the hand, the grip unfamiliar to Braethen.
The Sheason looked down at their bond. “I’m glad to see you, Denolan.”
Grant stared at Vendanj. “I’ve not heard that name in a long time. You must really need help.” A long pause stretched between them. “But don’t use the name. It’s not who I am anymore.”
Vendanj nodded to the request.
Grant raised a hand. Four young men and two young women came around to face him. Each of them, skin as deeply tanned as Grant’s, wore a sword and carried a bow. All had long hair tied back with strips of cloth. They weren’t much younger than Mira, and they wore the same stern look he saw on Grant’s face. The Far seemed to appreciate them in a way Braethen hadn’t seen her admire anyone before.
“See to their horses,” Grant ordered. “Take water and salve.”
The six left at a run, and Grant turned toward the house. “There are questions in your eyes, Vendanj. Let’s answer them and send you on your way. You don’t belong here.” The man brushed past Braethen without acknowledging him.
Following them, Braethen stepped over a circular depression that ringed the house at twenty strides. It occurred to him where they must be: the ring where Maral Praig and his Sheason had stood to call the Will in the Battle of the Round. His heart jumped at the thought of being at the center of where it took place.
A light wind whistled around the chimney and stirred dead grass here and there. Large red masonry bricks stood at each corner of the house. They looked like the baked clay of the Scar. Wood planks ran in vertical rows, bleached and coarse from exposure. The roof had been leaved with thin pieces of sandstone, and several ladders stood against the roof’s edge, giving Braethen the impression that it was used as a lookout.
At the door, Vendanj put a hand across Braethen’s chest. “It may be hard to respect this man,” Vendanj said softly. “But hold your tongue. His bitterness is earned.”
Inside the home, a cooler, settled air eased the heat in Braethen’s cheeks. Shielded from the sun, the trappings of the home nevertheless appeared sun-worn: a washbasin; a book cabinet largely empty; a rough table attended by four rough chairs; and open cupboards with a few dishes.
No art adorned the walls, only bow pegs and a narrow weapons rack near the door. A greying rug, its pattern faded to almost nothing, covered much of the floor.
Vendanj was looking over sheets of parchment laid across the table, while Braethen noticed something fixed to the wall beside the door. An elaborate sigil had been scrawled at the top of what looked like a formal letter:
This writ shall serve as witness that Emerit Denolan SeFeery has willfully committed treason against the stewardship entrusted to him and against the right order of progress as held by the High Court of Judicature and the League of Civility. It is hereby declared that Denolan SeFeery is unfit for citizenship in the free city of Recityv.
In the interest of justice he is thus permanently exiled into the emptiness known as the Scar. With the exception of the First Seat at the regent’s Table, he alone will know the trust this sentence represents.
Any known to abet Denolan SeFeery will be considered a traitor and judged accordingly.
From this day forward, Denolan SeFeery will no longer be referred to with the Emerit honors of his former office. Should he ever return to the free walls of Recityv, he shall be punished by immediate execution.
A dozen names marked the bottom of the page. The parchment itself drooped with sepia tiredness. Only the seal at the top indicated the official nature of the document.
“Emerit,” Braethen whispered with awe. An Emerit was a Recityv guard with sworn fealty to the regent. The physical prowess of such men was said to be matched only by their intellect. It was a title accorded to only the greatest fighters by only the highest mantle of government.
Grant lit a table lamp and started a fire against the coming of night. From a hidden basin beneath the rug he drew a jug and poured them each a cup of cool water. He waited while every cup was drained, then refilled them. He left the jug with Braethen and took a seat beside the fire.
“You bring a novice sodalist,” Grant said. “Does he realize what danger he must be in, simply traveling with you?”
Mira’s and Vendanj’s eyes fell on Braethen. Another awkward smile twisted Grant’s lips. Braethen looked at the wall again, where the edict had been placed. “I know there’s danger. It appears to be no less than what you’ve done in your own past.”
Grant’s laughter caught in his throat, his smile not looking natural on his face. “Astute words for a boy just out of his books. Before the three-ringed man and his fleetfoot ask me what they must, let me explain something to you.” He pointed a finger at Braethen. “I chose to be here. That parchment on the wall reminds me of that. The Scar’s an ugly place, and not for any of the reasons you think. But because I am here, these young ones aren’t sold on the blocks. And I show them how to keep from having their own choices taken from them.” Grant sat back, his face relaxing again. “By physical defense; all is coming to that. Or perhaps you knew this, since you wear a sword of your own.”
The fire hissed in the silence that followed.
Against the quiet hum of burning wood, Vendanj added, “Then why redraw the Charter?” The Sheason tapped the parchments lying on the table.
Dead gods. The Charter wasn’t even something that had been written. Spoken stories said that it was the principles the Framers had put in place for this world before they’d abandoned it. The right way of things. It wasn’t scripture. It wasn’t even fiction. It was a kind of common ethic that all men were said to feel in the fabric of their lives. An ethic that some said had lost its meaning. And relevance.
Grant gave Vendanj a bleak, unsmiling look. “Perhaps only to better understand what we’ve become.” He paused, his eyes distant. “And what lies ahead.”
“For that no Charter need be written,” Vendanj countered.
“Or maybe having no written Charter is precisely our problem.” Grant stood and went to the table where the parchments lay open. “It’s my primrose in this desert. Not writing this … it would be like admitting the League is right. And if that were so, then I couldn’t remain here.” His eyes seemed to look far away again. He muttered, “And the cradle would be more merciful as a casket.”
Again no one spoke, the only sound the popping of sap in the flames. Mira stood as still as a statue. Outside, the sound of hooves approached. Grant went to the door and gave a few instructions. Three of the six wards ran back into the dusk; the other three came inside and stood near the hall entrance.
Vendanj put a hand on Grant’s arm. “The regent is calling for a Convocation of Seats.”
Grant frowned, unimpressed. “And the Nations of the Sea, those across the Aela, the Mal?” Grant asked. “Do they care about the Second Promise any more than the First? Do t
hey even remember? It’s political posturing of the same brand that brought me here. Your Court of Judicature will fatten themselves and squabble over appointments to military stewardships and land resources. And those are the ones that even attend. The rest defend their own farthest borders if they can, and have no use for Convocations.”
“You may be right. But it’s different this time.” Vendanj paused, looking like he’d rather not say what came next. “A call has begun to end the Song of Suffering.”
That statement silenced the room.
The Song of Suffering was said to be a gift from the Framers. A song that kept the Veil in place, kept the Quiet in the Bourne.
Softly, Grant asked, “Who asks this?”
“The League.” Vendanj took a drink from his cup.
“Ah,” Grant grunted.
“There are Quiet deep in the east,” Mira added. “I think the Song is already faltering.”
Grant sat himself back by his fire. He watched the flames a moment. “I know. But they won’t engage us. They either fear us … or they use us as bait.” Grant shifted his attention to Braethen. “How long before they come through that door, Sodalist? You don’t care much for yourself to be standing beside a three-ring man. You’re a fool.”
“Enough,” Vendanj said.
“And you, Mira,” Grant pressed. “What covenants do you break by coming into the lands of men? You’re either more like me than you’ll admit, or the mysteries of your people are about to be laid bare for a tribe of Velle too fast for even you.”
“Enough!” Vendanj yelled. His voice boomed in the house, seeming to crash down from the crossbeams and echo off the floor. “These are not the words of the man who defied his accusers in the Recityv courts. Don’t let your sentence make you foolish.”
“Speak softly to dead men, Sheason,” Grant returned. “There’s no threat that moves us.” His gaze never moved from Vendanj.
The Sheason returned the stony stare. “We went to the Hollows to find Tahn.”
Grant’s expression changed, though it was hard to place. Recognition?
“Through Myrr and over the High Plains we came,” Vendanj related. “But on the North Face we were separated. We don’t know where he is now, but hopefully moving toward Recityv.”
Grant clenched his jaw. “I belong here,” he said. “The world beyond the Scar is not mine anymore.”
Vendanj sighed in disgust and frustration. “Then answer me one question.”
Grant looked him in the eye.
“Why do you look like you haven’t aged since you came here?”
CHAPTER FORTY
The Untabernacled
If you’re suggesting a legion of ghouls, then I counter with the Dannire. Sanctioned murderers in the name of dead gods. You see? I have devils, too.
—From the rhea-fol Tell Them by Their Hats, a parody of meaningful war
Sevilla showed a toothy grin and stood up. “There’s so much to learn here. Perhaps we can find your codex after all. But in any case, I think you’re staying here with me.”
In a startling rush, the man rounded the fire and tried to take Tahn by the wrist. Tahn felt a chill where Sevilla’s hand passed through his arm without so much as a bump. Tahn stared at his wrist in disbelief.
Sevilla snarled at himself in disgust, seeming to have forgotten his true nature. In an instant, his body began to change. The fine garments fell to loose rags, worn with holes. The fine hat and scabbard became a filthy sash and a shock of unkempt, knotted hair that hung like the dark strands of a mop. Behind him, Sutter drew his sword.
Sevilla looked up at Tahn, a strange mixture of bitterness and regret in his eyes. “So long in that dark country, little hunter, digger of roots.” Anger surged in his face, pure hatred contorting his features. “I want my own body!”
Sevilla leapt forward with startling speed, his hands rising toward Tahn’s throat. Tahn dropped into a backward roll. Sevilla raced through the air where Tahn had stood, then turned, a shriek of frustration tearing through the wilds. Sutter jumped between them as Tahn struggled to his feet.
“Little man with a steel toy,” the thing barked in savage mockery. “If I could I’d take your strike to know the glory of the sting.”
Sevilla launched himself again. Sutter started to swing, but had only cocked his blade when Sevilla shot an arm into his chest. The creature’s gnarled fist plunged deep into Sutter’s flesh. Nails dropped his sword, his body tensing, writhing.
It can touch a man when it means him harm.
Cords stood out on Sutter’s neck as he twisted and fought to free himself. But it appeared the creature had hold of his friend’s heart. Around them the air began to whip and swirl, stirring sparks from the fire in dervishes and tugging at their cloaks. Sutter sputtered calls for assistance, his movements starting to slow.
Tahn nocked an arrow and made his draw before he realized his weapon couldn’t harm the creature. There was nothing he could do. So, he charged at Sutter and Sevilla, diving into his friend and wrapping his arms about his waist. His momentum tore Sutter from the creature’s grasp, and Nails uttered a weak, throaty cry as his connection to the beast was severed.
Sutter fell to the ground beneath him like a loose bag of grain. Quickly, Tahn turned over and sat up, again drawing his bow and pulling his aim down on the dark creature.
The being slowly came forward. Its withered features contorted with rage and menace. Words hissed from its lips, but Tahn couldn’t understand them. It was circling close. How could he destroy something he couldn’t touch?
His mind filled with the image of himself standing on a precipice, prepared to fire into emptiness.
You must learn and remember the power of the draw itself, not the arrow.
Tahn stood and uncertainly faced Sevilla. He cast his arrow to the ground between them and drew back his bowstring again. The creature paused, concern narrowing his contorted features. Distantly Tahn heard Sutter howling in pain, but the sound of it was lost behind another sound like the hum of a potter’s wheel turning. His entire body began to quake uncontrollably, as though vibrating with the same strident hum he heard in his head. The resonance inside him thrummed, seeking release.
In his mind, he spoke the old words. Nothing. No feeling that Sevilla should die. No feeling that he shouldn’t.
My dying gods. What is this?
With no sense of his draw, Tahn felt lost. He stared, paralyzed. I’m going to die.
Then it came to him. Sevilla was never alive.
The air continued to howl about them as Sevilla took another guarded step forward.
Tahn drew his string further, his heart pounding in every joint of his body. He glanced at the shape of the hammer on his left hand to steady himself, and whispered the old words. Despite the terrible tremors wracking him, his strength and thought and emotion coalesced as he’d never felt before.
The small camp became a maelstrom of embers, leaves, twigs, and dust. Eddies of the mixture swirled in the crevices of trees and large roots. Tahn’s hair whipped about his head, flailing at his eyes, but he kept his arms up, trying to hold steady on the figure of Sevilla. He saw the ledge from his dream, the impossible targets of a cloud, a mountain, a horizon, and closed his eyes against them. He felt close to the precipice, and was ready to release, wanted to release, and give way to the feeling that welled inside him.
Then abruptly the wind ceased, the fire fell to a slender flame. Tahn opened his eyes. Sevilla took a step back before turning and starting to walk away.
Tahn watched, unable to stop his own shaking or release his draw. His muscles ached but would not obey. At the edge of the light, Sevilla half-turned and looked back. His clothes still hung like mottled rags, but his face had again become that of the amiable, sure man they’d first seen. He appeared ready to say something, his lips working silently. Then he was gone among the trees. Tahn collapsed, still gripping his bow and staring into the low ceiling of tightly woven limbs.
* * *
Sutter writhed.
His soul ached.
The moment Sevilla had put his hand into Sutter’s chest, it had taken hold of something inside him. It hurt differently than a cut or broken bone. And the creature’s icy touch had taught Sutter an awful, immutable truth: His spirit could be separated from his body. Not death. Displacement.
For a terrible moment, he was sure Sevilla—some kind of disembodied spirit—wished to possess him. It would force Sutter’s soul into the empty existence in which it had lived. And then he realized what Sevilla—or whatever it was—sought. It hunted for the Stonemounts. Their secret of life and death. It wanted to be alive. It was trying to find a physical form for its spirit.
It’s damned.
It wailed at the thought—damned!—somehow through its connection with Sutter able to hear his mind.
Then the struggle began in earnest.
Sutter could feel his spirit wrestling, shifting inside himself, trying to stay joined with his body.
His vision swam, one moment looking into the creature’s terrible rictus, the next awash in blue where images of the countless dead walked, watched, or wailed. With the eyes of his inner self he could view the unseen world. It was filled with the untabernacled—spirits with no body. It haunted him. He thrashed harder to free himself of Sevilla’s hold.
Only vaguely was he aware of Tahn—movement somewhere nearby.
Then his soul began to slip.
An awful comfort stole over him, a dreadful serenity in leaving behind the uncertainty of future choices. He looked about him, embracing the final reality, ready to join the countless spirits he could see with these new eyes. He caught the violet and black and cerulean world in snatches through the creature’s mortal embrace.
And at the farthest reaches of his mind, a wry thought halted his surrender: I’m being plucked from my own body like a root from dry ground. And on its heels came another thought: I’m better than this.
He fought back.
But the burn and tear of spirit from flesh became too exquisite to bear, and soon real death beckoned him.
Then Sevilla’s hand was ripped free of its grasp upon his heart. Dark thoughts and dreams receded in a blinding rush, and he crumpled to the forest floor with his friend, who’d forced the creature’s release.
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