Broken World Book Four - The Staff of Law

by Southwell, T C

  Chanter was absent for Travain’s christening and when he started crawling at one month old. It took two extra wet nurses to satisfy his hunger, yet he hardly cried, nor did he suffer from colic. His pale blue eyes held a depth that Talsy could not plumb, and everything around him appeared to fascinate him. He slept little, and seemed content to lie in his cradle staring into space when he was not being fed. Talsy adored him, and rarely let him out of her sight, proclaiming him to be the most perfect child in the world. Kieran watched him grow with a mixture of doubt and fascination, waiting for the first signs of Mujar character. Although he did not hate Mujar, he regarded them with a deep wariness and mistrust. He had never been able to forget the scars Dancer’s apparent callousness had inflicted, even though Chanter had explained the reason.

  Talsy regained her slender figure, and her hair grew back glossy gold, cut short to curl around her face. Her eating and sleeping habits returned to normal, and she took an interest in the problems of the people in the valley. As time passed, her sphere of interest increased, and she worried about what was happening outside the valley again.

  One afternoon, Kieran found her in the room that housed the pieces of the staff, staring at the fragments that lay on the sheet of crimson velvet. She glanced around at his entrance, then gazed at the shattered Staff of Law again, Travain gurgling on her hip.

  “We must try to restore it,” she murmured.

  “How? The fifth piece is still missing.”

  She frowned. “If the wind didn’t see it, then it didn’t fly through the air. If it didn’t fly through the air, where must it be?”

  Kieran shrugged. “Maybe it went underground.”

  “Maybe it didn’t go anywhere.”

  “You mean it might still be there, in Tyrander’s castle?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Just because the winds didn’t see it doesn’t mean it didn’t fly. The winds don’t see everything,” he said.

  “That’s true, but it’s the most likely place for it, don’t you think? I’ve wondered if it might be there since Chanter told me.” She shifted Travain onto her other hip. “We must search for it. We won’t find it staying here.”

  “Don’t you think that’s what Chanter’s been doing when he’s been away?”

  “No.” She smiled. “He’s just been running wild. He wouldn’t bother to search for it, I never asked him to.”

  “He found the fourth piece.”

  “He knew I wanted it, and he knew where it was. The fifth piece he always dismissed as lost, and, as far as he was concerned, that was that. He has no ambition to restore the staff. He fulfilled my Wish to find the four pieces we knew of. We must return to Tyrander’s castle and see if we can find it.”

  “We?” Kieran’s brows rose. “You’d leave Travain with his nursemaids?”

  “No, he’ll come with me.”

  “He’s just a baby. You can’t go dragging him all over the countryside. It’s too dangerous, and besides, we’d have to take two wet nurses and a wagon of food for him.” At her mutinous look, he hurried on, “Let Chanter go. He can fly, and nothing can harm him in the air.”

  She scowled, considering this. “He’d have to walk back if he’s carrying it. That would be dangerous for him.”

  “Not as dangerous as it would be for you. Think of Travain. Would you put him in that much danger? Chanter knows better than to go near people, and he doesn’t need to. He can protect himself from the beasts out there even if it means flying away and leaving the stone, then returning for it when it’s safe. We can’t fly.”

  She bit her lip, pondering, and he added, “The only time he needed our help was to get the piece from the Kingdom of Zare, because it was in a city. He found the stone in the ocean and the one in the mountains. There’s no one at Tyrander’s castle.”

  She nodded. “I suppose you’re right. But he’s not here.”

  “He’ll be back soon, he rarely stays away longer than a month, or you could call him.”

  She looked down at Travain, who stared at the broken staff. “He hasn’t even seen his son.”

  “He saw him when he was born. Chanter’s not interested in him. You have to accept that.”

  She blinked and sighed. “I suppose I do, don’t I?”

  Talsy woke to find the room filled with dawn’s soft, rosy light, and stretched, wondering what had disturbed her. Usually she did not wake so early. Two days had passed since her conversation with Kieran. Sensing a presence close by, she rolled over to glance at the window. The Mujar sat on the ledge, one leg braced against its edge, the other dangling within the room. She rose with a glad cry and went over to hug him. He held her away and inspected her with a smile.

  “You look much better.”

  She pulled a face. “I was a mess, wasn’t I?”

  “Yes, you were, but you seem happy now.”

  “I am, especially now that you’re here.”

  Travain grizzled, and she went over to pick him up, opening her nightgown for him to suckle.

  Chanter tilted his head. “He’s grown.”

  She grinned, her eyes shining with pride. “He’s crawling already, and he’s so good.”

  “I’m glad he’s made you happy.”

  “He eats like a horse, and he has all his teeth already.”

  “Strange, the way Lowmen feed their young,” he said. “Almost like Mujar eating their mother plant, but yours only eat part of you.”

  Talsy laughed. “What a strange thought! But I suppose it’s true, in a weird way.” She sat in a chair and gazed down at her son, stroking his soft white hair. “He doesn’t have the mark.”

  “He’s too young. Mujar don’t develop the mark until they’re about six months old.”

  “Can you tell if he’s more like you than me?”

  He looked away. “No, not yet. He looks quite Lowman.”

  “He’s not normal. No Lowman baby would be crawling at a month old, or have all his teeth. He never cries and hardly sleeps.”

  “Of course he’s not normal, but as yet there’s no way to tell if he’ll be like a Mujar or merely a strange Lowman child.”

  Talsy bit back a retort, reminding herself that of all the people she knew, Chanter was the least likely to admire their offspring. “Would you like to hold him?”

  “No.”

  She quelled another surge of animosity at his rejection and changed the subject. “We have to find the last piece of the staff.”

  He glanced around. “So you’ve regained your interest in that. I’d hoped the child would distract you.”

  “His name’s Travain.”

  The Mujar frowned. “You gave him this name?”

  “Yes, why, don’t you like it?”

  “It’s all right.”

  Talsy had the impression that he had other reservations about her naming the child, but returned to the previous subject. “I think I know where the last piece of stone is.”

  “Really?” He looked sceptical. “Where?”

  “I think you know as well as I do. It’s not that hard to figure out. The fifth piece is where it’s always been, in Tyrander’s castle.”

  “Ah.” He stared across the valley, hiding his expression.

  “You knew, didn’t you?” she accused.

  “As you say, it’s not that hard to figure out. It’s not certain, but that would be the logical location.”

  “Will you go and fetch it?”

  “To what end?” He turned to look at her. “Then you’ll have five pieces of useless stone lying on a sheet of velvet instead of four.”

  “You can make it whole again.”

  “Another pointless exercise. The laws are gone, and they can’t be remade except by the gods.”

  “We could restore some of them,” she argued.

  He shook his head. “We’ve been through this before.”

  “I want that last piece. If you won’t do it, I’ll go myself.”

  “I didn’t say that I wouldn’t fetch i
t.” He sighed. “If that’s your Wish, then I will.”

  “We don’t have to be formal about this, do we?”

  “No.”

  “And once it’s here, you’ll make it whole again?”

  He nodded, his expression sorrowful. “I wish I could restore the laws, too. The world outside is dying.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “Bad enough, and getting worse.”

  Remembering the journey home from the Kingdom of Zare, she shuddered. It had been bad enough then. “That’s why we have to try to restore the staff. Maybe if we make it whole again, the gods will put back the laws.” She glanced down at Travain. “I want a world for our son to inherit, a future in which he can have children of his own, not seventy-two years in which to ponder the futility of his existence, imprisoned in this valley. When you die, so does this valley, unless Travain has the power to maintain it, and his children too. But even if they do, they’ll still be trapped here.”

  Chanter shook his head. “In a hundred years, not even a purebred Mujar will be able to stop the world from falling apart. There are limits to our power, you know. We’re not gods.”

  “Then we have to find a way to restore the laws, even if it means spending every day on our knees begging the gods to help us.”

  He looked startled. “You think this would help?”

  “Yes, well, how else will they know what we need, or how we feel?”

  Chanter’s eyes grew distant. “They see everything we do and know what’s in our hearts. Why do they need us to beg for their aid?”

  “Well then, once we’ve restored the staff, we wait until the gods decide what to do about it. If, by restoring the laws, they can remake the world as it was, why wouldn’t they? What would be the point in letting it come to an end, and killing the good as well as the bad?”

  He shrugged, staring at the floor. “Who knows what they’ll decide. I do their will, but I don’t know their thoughts. At the moment, my decisions are my own. They touched me only once, when I chose you. Since then I’ve been following the instructions they gave me and the knowledge they revealed to me.”

  “Then let’s restore the staff. Perhaps they’re waiting for us to take the initiative. When you chose me, they made a decision, maybe when we restore the staff, they’ll make another.” She leant forward. “Let’s show them we care, and not just sit here waiting for the end.”

  The Mujar rose and turned to the window. “If that’s your Wish, so be it.”

  Talsy jumped up. “Wait! Don’t go yet. Stay, have something to eat, rest a while, there’s no hurry.”

  Chanter hesitated, and she knew a part of him yearned for the freedom that beckoned outside the window, while the temptation of the comforts every Mujar craved held him back. He followed her down to the castle’s vast, warm kitchen, where Sheera tended the roaring ovens and lorded it over a bevy of women that came to help her and bake their bread. Sheera was patently delighted to see Chanter, and plied him with food until he could eat no more, her gaze often darting between him and Travain. Perhaps she looked for similarities, or expected some gesture of affection or acceptance, Talsy mused. Chanter ignored the child, and when Travain finished feeding, Talsy handed him to a wet nurse for another meal.

  Law swam the ocean depths for many moons with his new, gentle friends. He found their shape pleasing and their play enjoyable. When they hunted, he left them to play amongst the waves, glided through the glittering blueness and leapt high into the cold dry void to fall back with a great splash into the swirling sea. He plumbed the depths and followed the gleam of Dolana that mapped the ocean floor, enjoying the water’s soft embrace and the soothing cradle of its cold cocoon. For a while, he joined a pod of whales and tried their form, but he found it too slow and bulky, and reverted to a dolphin’s sleek, speedy shape.

  Far out in the ocean, he came across a massive food beast basking in the sun, its bevy of predators like a flotilla of ships around an island. Here he discovered the joy of communing with his own kind, a speech far deeper and more meaningful than the dolphins’ chatter or the whales’ mournful songs. He bonded with a predator and shared its gentle mind and peaceful ways, enjoying the sweet rush of emotion that was its name. Seeking to be closer still, he tried to take its form, but, no matter how hard he tried, the shape of a predator would not come into his mind. He pondered this for some time, taking man form to crawl out onto the food beast’s back and lie in the sun. He had become adept at changing his shape, and had tried many, finding some that he liked and others that were not so much fun to wear.

  More than anything, he longed to join the predators in their joyful play, and wondered why this was denied him. The whispering golden light in his head had become much calmer since he joined the food beast. As the rushing wisps of words and letters flashed around his head, he strived to read them, but the angular writing defied his attempts to decipher it.

  Law’s new home drifted across the sea, safe from the strange, growing chaos in the world. When he slept, the golden writing in his dreams slowed to wavering stillness, like a reflection in the dark pool of his mind.

  Law dreamt of a stone staff, another of light and a third of darkness, and knew their names. He saw the stone staff broken and its words unleashed, but none of it concerned him. The joy all Mujar craved was his in abundance, and he spurned the niggling mystery of the blinding light, content to leave it unsolved.

  Chapter Five

  Chanter rode the breeze on broad wings, revelling in his freedom and the joy of flight, while the growing chaos saddened him. Strange vistas of twisted trees and barren lands passed below, grotesque animals hunted others as mutated as they. Living stone invaded dying forests, water and earth blood welled from the ground to run in rivers of corruption, their banks polluted by the sickness of their deadly burden. Clouds of ash rode the winds, and smoke from distant mountains fouled the air. Occasionally, he found an oasis of green, but soon these would fall, and all who sheltered in them.

  The wind beneath him died, and he plummeted, flapping. A drone of wings warned him, and he folded his own as a massive manant attacked, its pincers nipping the air where he had been. The forbidding land rushed up at him, a gloomy forest of twisted, dying trees, knobs of living stone sprouting obscenely in their place.

  Spreading his wings at the last moment, he swooped into the shelter of the trees, which forced the manant to veer away. In the wood’s darkness, he twisted and turned between the branches, unaided by any Kuran, for none guarded this forest now. A barrier loomed before him, too close to avoid, and he crashed into a giant web’s sticky trap. The strong strands ensnared his wings, and flapping only entangled him further. Glimpsing a bloated white spider-like creature whose eyes spat a poisonous glare, he struggled wildly. His frantic flapping tore the web and sent him tumbling into the stinking ooze that covered the forest floor.

  There, he became mired in the muck that weighed his wings with a burden of mud. In a rush of Ashmar, he reverted to a man, stood up and wiped off most of the sludge. As he walked, the slippery slime oozed around his boots, forcing him to clutch trees. The corruption sickened him; the stench abused his nose and the foul warm Dolana seeped into him from his feet. Not daring to use the corrupted power, or attempt to fly while covered with mud, he tramped on, wary of aggressive chaos beasts that had lost their respect for Mujar.

  Many times, he glimpsed the strange slither of vast bloated shapes, warped beyond imagination, amongst the trees. Each time he froze, his boots sinking into the mire while he waited for the beast to move away, knowing that a sound or movement would betray him. Ugly, fungus-like growths brushed against him, making him shiver at their tainted touch. The forest’s silence was like a thick, invisible pall, broken by sudden shrieks and howls that startled him with their unnatural loudness. He detoured around patches of sticky blackness seeping from the mud, and the occasional huge web that blocked the way, guarded by its venomous owner.

  Reaching the end of the wood, he found a st
ream and washed off the mud, which turned the water yellow. It bubbled and steamed as the corruption spread upstream and down. Within minutes, the entire rivulet boiled away, leaving a yellow stain. Taking wing again, he soared into the untainted sky, speeding his journey with powerful wing beats, eager to put this quest behind him and return to the valley’s sanity. He passed over a relatively intact city that Lowmen defended from the depravity of its surrounds, a losing battle against the living rock that invaded the streets. Further on, a battle raged between Lowmen and manants on a vast killing field of blood-soaked ground and red-tinged rivers. The armies fought and died for areas of safe land on which they could have lived. Other fields of whitening bones, the product of past battles, sank into the morass of destruction, their outcome no longer relevant to the doomed victors.

  A day of flight brought him to the vanishing red desert whose dunes soaked away into the soil, leaving hills of sand between winding lanes of barren ground. Here, the staff’s fading laws held a little more sway. The echoes of its order steeped the land, and nothing odd marred the dying desert. He landed briefly to test the Dolana, finding it still sweet and untarnished, its icy drain a welcome sensation he only sensed now within the valley. Flying on, he considered the power that kept the valley sane, the marks he had placed upon the mountains and the Mujar laws he had set within the ground. The Dargon helped, with their power over soil and rock, to enhance his commands. Even so, corruption stalked just beneath his warding, ready to invade the moment his power faded, as it would when he died.

  The sun sank in a blaze of sullen fire, appearing to drag streamers of burning cloud over the horizon with it. The stars appeared one by one, sprinkling the inky heavens with their cold glitter. In this silver light, he swooped down upon the tumbled ruins of Tyrander’s castle, exposed by the receding sand to stand like decaying teeth. Of the oasis, no trace remained. It had returned to the land that had birthed it with the cessation of the staff’s power, leaving nothing of itself behind. He took man form, pausing for a moment to contemplate the beauty of the rising moon before beginning his search. To find a piece of unremarkable grey stone amongst a plethora of them seemed an impossible task, and he wondered if indeed the last piece of the staff had remained in the place of its destruction.