“Well it looks like a fine job to me,” Sutter said.
“Thanks, lad.”
Sutter reached to touch the sword. Geddy quickly pulled the weapon back. “Not yours to be putting your hands on. I just thought you might like to see it.”
“Actually, its owner is a man named Vendanj,” Tahn said. “He asked us to pick it up for him.”
Geddy cast a wary eye on him.
Sutter gave an exasperated sigh. “Tall guy. Great sense of humor. The kind you want to upset so that he has to come get the sword himself.”
Still Geddy didn’t seem convinced.
“With a woman companion. Grey cloak,” Tahn added. “She moves fast.”
The smithy nodded. “Very well. I know I can trust you.” Sutter faked a hurt look. Geddy put the tip of the blade into his water bucket, where it hissed and steamed. He then pulled the weapon out, tested its temperature with his thumb, and retrieved a rather ordinary sheath to stow the blade. “Tell him I had no time to polish or sharpen.”
With some reluctance, Geddy handed the weapon to Tahn, who had to tug a bit to pry it from the smithy’s fingers. “Thank you.” As he and Sutter turned, Tahn thought he heard old Geddy mutter something about the sword and a strange light in the back of his barn.
CHAPTER THREE
A Late Reader
Braethen Posian sat in the warm light of his lamps and read. His father was Author Posian—A’Posian, as the tradition held—and the problem of it had been Braethen’s access to books. He had little self-control when it came to them. Stories, histories, maps; didn’t matter. And it led to the other hazard of his twenty-six years of life: He’d found the Sodality.
He’d discovered it at the tender age of eight, and loved everything about it: the purpose, the creed, the stories of sacrifice to meet and uphold higher truths. The Sodality covenanted themselves to the Sheason. Braethen had never actually met a renderer. But the Sheason’s utter commitment to service—even at the cost of his own soul—left him holding that order in the highest regard, even though his father had spoken cautiously of the Sheason, warning that they walked between worlds, a path at the edge of what is and what may be, of what can be touched and what can be changed.
And so Braethen had spent the better part of his twenty-six years reading about and yearning to belong to the Sodality. So much so that he’d become a target for mockery—some of it good-natured enough, but a target nonetheless.
The real problem, though, was simply that the Hollows had no Sheason, and so no need of a sodalist.
Not yet, he thought. But things could change.
A knock came at the door.
He jumped up. He hoped to hear that the reader had arrived. He’d made a friend of Ogea. The old man always gave him an evening of discussion when he came to the Hollows, probably because Ogea and Braethen’s father were such good friends. But the old man made time just for Braethen. He shared things with him that he didn’t say from the rooftops. And Ogea was the only person who didn’t tease Braethen about his obsession with the Sodality; in fact, the old man taught him more than he could ever glean on his own. He loved him for that.
With a book still in one hand and a quill clamped in his teeth, he pulled the door open to see Tahn and Sutter. “To what do I owe this pleasure? I know you two don’t read.”
They laughed and pushed past him into the room. “Can we come in?”
As Sutter passed by, he fingered the pin at Braethen’s throat. It was the tarnished copper emblem of the Sodality: a sword on its side, a quill balanced on the blade at its center, the entire crest wreathed in a circlet of copper leaves. He had had it mongered by Geddy in exchange for a sign listing the prices of his various smith services.
Braethen shut the door on the wind and turned to his guests, waiting. He bore the two friends no animosity, even though they were among those who mocked him—though usually in fun. Because he was taller, and both fuller in chest and broader in shoulders than both Tahn and Sutter, he liked to believe if he really wanted to stop their mockery, he could.
“Who’s there?” A’Posian called from a room at the back of the house.
“It’s Tahn and Sutter,” Braethen replied.
The author came into the room and removed his specs to shake the boys’ hands. “What brings you here? I know you don’t read.”
They all laughed at the repeated joke, and the author clapped them on the back before going back to his writing desk. No one ever came to A’Posian’s home without receiving his hand and some small witticism.
After he’d gone, Sutter and Tahn stood staring, a strange look in their eyes. So Braethen did the only sensible thing—he sat back down to his books. He proffered a plate of cheese and berries to the two, who waved it away.
Braethen marked his place in three of the books opened on the table before looking up at the two of them and asking again, “All right, out with it. What’s going on?”
Sutter cocked his head to look at the books strewn across the table. “Why did you not follow in your father’s path and take up the Authors’ way?”
Braethen’s smile faded, and his expression became thoughtful. “I thought I would. Father needed my help even when I was young, so I started copying books for him before you two could even walk.” He was eight Northsuns older than Tahn and Sutter. “But I don’t have Father’s gift for words. I learned that about myself a long time ago. And somewhere in all those books, I found other interests.”
“The Sodality,” Tahn supplied.
“I was drawn to the purpose,” Braethen said, and put his fingers to the brooch at his throat.
“Not a lot of call for it here,” Sutter remarked, rolling his eyes.
“True enough,” Braethen answered, unruffled. “I’ve no real acquaintance with the brotherhood, but I’m still learning, aren’t I?” He smiled broadly.
“What are you reading?” Tahn asked.
Braethen’s eyes glimmered at the question. “Histories mostly, with the occasional journal or map.” He shifted on his chair. “I bought some of them from a merchant down out of Myrr.” He began to gesture, his excitement growing with each passing word. “I suspect they were not gotten legally. I’ve read them all, several times, but there are inconsistencies and vast gaps. Entire ages summarized in a few pages.” He ran a hand through his short, light brown hair. “Each time the reader comes, I have my questions ready.” He paused. “This year I study even more because he has not come.” Braethen looked toward the window, beyond which pine boughs swayed softly in the wind.
Sutter closed one of the books. “No offense, Braethen, but … why? Listening to the reader is enough, I say. What good can come of knowing the details of dead things? And after that, isn’t the whole point of being a sodalist to protect a Sheason?”
Braethen replied, unabashed, “The Sodality defends in two ways: the arm and the word. I’m focusing on the word right now.” Again he tapped the emblem at his throat.
This whole “focusing on the word” thing was a small evasion, and he hoped they’d be inclined to let him have it—though they didn’t likely know any better. Besides, after all the joking done at his expense, Tahn had told him once that except for maybe Braethen’s father he thought Braethen was the most ethical, dependable person in all the Hollows, precisely because he lived by the sodalist oath. That had been a good day.
Tahn broke the silence. “I think Sutter’s trying to say that he’s jealous, since digging roots is so awfully important.”
“Yeah, that’s it,” Sutter agreed in a sarcastic tone.
“The past, all the ages of man, show us what will be,” Braethen said, hefting one of the tomes before him. “They help us act today so that tomorrow doesn’t come with all the mistakes that have gone before. This knowledge helps a sodalist serve a Sheason, the two working together in the common interest of others.”
“You sound like a book,” Sutter said.
Braethen ignored him, and turned with familiarity to a passage. �
�This is our purpose.”
“Here he goes,” Sutter muttered, “with the credo.”
“‘Change is inevitable and necessary, but the traditions of our fathers need to be preserved. Someone must watch. Someone must remember. And someone must defend…’” He trailed off, feeling again as he had the first time he’d read those words: humbled, yet eager to take the oath himself.
“You sound like the reader when you speak of such things,” Tahn said.
Sutter waved a hand in front of Braethen’s eyes. “Yeah, kind of spooky.”
Braethen shook himself physically from his reverie. “The storms have never held so long. It bears another meaning, I think … rain, water … renewal … change. Maybe war.”
A chill ran down Braethen’s own back, and Sutter closed his mouth with an audible sound. Then the would-be sodalist looked up. The little room grew suddenly quite serious. “I’ll tell you the truth. I’m more fond of Ogea than anyone, and I hope he is dead and that we simply haven’t received word of it. Because … I don’t like what I believe is the alternative.”
“What, did you read something like that in your books?” Sutter wanted to know.
But before Braethen could answer, beyond the door the sound of slow hooves fell upon the street. At the lonely echo of a rider on the muddy roads of the Hollows, another chill rushed over him. They all went to the window to look out. The window began to cloud before his face and he unwittingly held his breath. Outside, the wind moaned over the eaves of the house and sighed through the trees.
The rider passed, so slowly that there could be no mistaking his identity: the reader. Ogea sat slumped in his saddle, his forehead resting upon the neck of his mule. In a moment, he vanished again down the road, lost beyond the trees surrounding Braethen’s home.
“Let’s go,” Braethen said. He ran to the back of the house and told his father the reader had arrived. Then he donned his cloak and flew out the door, Tahn and Sutter close behind him.
It took but a short walk to catch up to the reader. Ogea’s mount plodded along steady and slow.
As was tradition, the reader wound through the Hollows, saying nothing, his procession his only announcement. Townsfolk and Northsun travelers flocked to the street, as they always did, today drawing their coats and cloaks tightly around them as they followed behind. There was always a quiet reverence at Ogea’s passage, but this time Braethen felt a sullen edge to the silence.
Dirt-stained and torn, the reader’s cloak bore black-fringed holes as though left too close to a fire. Underfoot, the mud on the road, now being trod by a hundred boots or more, made soft sucking noises in the early dusk.
The wind continued to howl, and somewhere on the Huber River a water hawk protested the wretched skies that hindered its hunting, its call a faint but ominous shrill.
Finally, the procession drew toward the Fieldstone. A crowd stood in the street before the inn, ready to welcome the reader. The mass parted as Ogea’s mule kept on straight, paying them no mind. Behind him, the crowd came together again. At the far corner of the inn, the reader stopped. He slid from his saddle, and steadied himself with his pommel. His satchels hung as they always had upon the flanks of his mule. Ogea reached inside, drawing out a scroll that bore a wax seal.
“My Skies. He’s never read from the old parchment before,” Braethen said reverently. “He usually carries a book with him to the roof.”
In a broken gait, the reader hobbled toward the ladder that leaned against the Fieldstone. He clutched the scroll tightly to his chest with both arms. A strong gust of wind rushed in upon the crowd, and hands went up to hold hoods in place. Ogea’s cowl was thrown back. A soft moan, so like the wind, escaped those closest to the reader—dried blood stained the reader’s cheeks and chin.
The old man dropped to one knee just a pace from the ladder. But he stood on his own and slowly looked up the long ascent. Pausing for a breath, he tucked the scroll into his cloak and grasped the rungs.
And climbed.
The Fieldstone never appeared so tall to Braethen. Step by step, Ogea went up, gasping at every rung. The rasp in his lungs was audible above the white rushing sound of the wind. Two thirds of the way up, his foot slipped and caused him almost to lose his grip. One bony hand held tight, and he quickly hugged the ladder, pressing his cheek to a rung.
He started again. This time he climbed past the balcony with deliberate steps and slowly reached the roof, where he turned and beheld the people standing in the street below. Atop the inn, the wind whipped at his thin white hair and beard, his russet cloak flailing against the grey of the clouds blanketing the sky. After he regained his breath, he took the scroll from inside his cloak and thoughtfully ran his hands across its length. Holding the parchment in one hand, he surveyed the crowd again and began to speak.
“Northsun is past, another cycle come, and another measure of time to reckon our lives by. Hidden behind the clouds, the sun falls again into the west, and beneath these shrouds we huddle near our fires and share encouraging words.” The reader sighed heavily. “The time for this is now past.”
Ogea then stepped closer to the edge of the Fieldstone and raised his voice with more passion. “Before our fires, before the sun, the Great Fathers held their Council of Creation at the Tabernacle of the Sky. They called forth the light, the land, and filled both with life. Every living thing was intended to grow in stature and harmony with the elements around it.
“And this all was done for the good of everyone. But in their wisdom, the First Ones knew there must be counterbalance, a way for their creation to be tested and challenged. Else no learning or change could occur, and their council would bring to naught their intention: that we should become great ourselves. So, one of the fathers was given the charge to create all that would be ill to the land and its life. To one was given the task of creating sorrow and strife.”
It was the old story, one Ogea told at every Northsun, but it enthralled the crowd to the last man, riveting them all as Braethen had never seen. Perhaps the endless storms had caused Hollows’s folk to reflect more, of late, on their own mortality.
“For a time, the council served with great joy. Sound and song filled the land with vibrance, attending the creation of every living thing. But the One grew delighted in his charge to test men by affliction. He set upon the lands pricks and briars of every sort, creatures without conscience, to harrow the creations of light. Thousands of years did the council serve, the One becoming dark in his soul, consumed with his task.
“The Great Fathers knew the One must be bound, else men were lost. So, together they sealed him to the earth that he so wanted to destroy, creating for him a sepulchre in the farthest corner of the world to live an eternity in his rancor. And thus the High Season came to an end; the time of creation, of newness at the hands of the Noble Ones, passed from memory.”
Ogea’s hair flailed in the wind, his cloak pulled powerfully by the gales. The sash at his waist likewise twisted in the gusts that rushed over the Fieldstone roof. His pallor shone down upon the people, as though the warning in his tale had stolen his own vigor. Yet his voice rose into the wind. And into the face of it his eyes remained unblinking as he surveyed those who listened to his words.
“But by the time the One had been bound, balance had been undone. The land had gone awry of the Great Fathers’ plan from the foundation, and they could not hope to salvage their vision. So they abandoned their work, sealing those given to the Quiet within the Bourne and leaving the unfinished world to mete out its own fate. And many scornful races there were who had, indeed, given their very souls to Quietus’s hateful designs. So, into the land the First Ones introduced the Sheason, an order ordained to establishing peace and equanimity, set apart to guide the other races throughout the rest of Aeshau Vaal.
“But legions of the One pressed against the Shadow of the Hand where the veil between the Bourne and our world grew weakest. Quietgiven roiled with bitterness and chaos, unsure of their place since the
Abandonment by the First Ones. But none more than the Draethmorte.”
Gasps escaped the crowd at the mention of the Draethmorte. An unnatural chill rippled Braethen’s flesh. He had heard Ogea utter the word only once.
“They were the first to be given breath at the hands of the One, in a time before his banishment, when the Gods yet held hope for this world. They knew well the power of the First Ones, for they learned at the feet of the council itself, serving in that first High Season, believing themselves chosen to set the world upon its path and guide it to its own glory.
“But like their creator, their arts grew cankered. And when the One was exiled, they, too, were sent into the Bourne, where their bitterness and hatred were likewise bound. There they served as the One’s highest council, organizing his followers. These armies eventually penetrated the veil, passing the Pall Mountains. They marched south from the Hand into the lands of men after the Framers were gone.”
From the roof the reader began to cough, the rasp in his chest sounding like the wet tearing of flesh. Blood oozed onto his lips, and when he spoke again the blood spattered in red-grey droplets down his tunic.
“The land has grown old since the Craven Season, ages passing, millennia now often forgotten. They have names, all of them, but it is enough to know that we have lived, survived, tended the land. Until this season that rests upon us now. The Sheason have dwindled, some lost to the weakness of flesh, unwilling to accept the cost to their own lives to bear the call. More often, they cannot find suitable initiates to learn their path. And in this Age of Rumor, there are those who have sought the execution of the Sheason.”
Ogea looked up into the sky and shook his fist, a strangled protest tearing from his narrow chest into the neutral light of the clouds.
Braethen knew why the reader protested, and he shared Ogea’s disdain. The League of Civility had passed the Civilization Order in most nations to execute Sheason for rendering the Will even when in the service of others. The League claimed what the Sheason did was superstitious and archaic, akin to the dark talents the old stories ascribed to creatures of the Bourne.
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