Vendanj glanced at Braethen, then began. “The things we must discuss are matters of import. Let’s begin with Tahn. I think there is more to the story you started to tell here not an hour ago.”
Behind them the sounds of the hall grew steadily more raucous, some men chewing hungrily, others arguing, many laughing nervously. But on this side of the fire, in the small circle around the rough table, quiet, intense conversation went on with a man whose face looked trustworthy, but who was also filled with the knowledge of an outlander. Would he have knowledge of the creature Tahn had seen in the trees controlling the very rain itself?
Tahn related his encounter with the creature in the woods, the darkness in the rain, and the dry ground with two scorched, fist-punched holes. When he’d finished, Vendanj regarded him a moment, but asked no questions. Then he spoke again.
“There are choices ahead. Only Braethen has made the Change, but Tahn has no father to counsel him, and you”—Vendanj pointed at Sutter—“I’d rather leave behind. But you know too much. If we leave you here, you’re a danger to us, to yourself, and to your adoptive parents.”
Tahn turned to his friend. Sutter was the son of Filmoere and Kaylla Te Polis, the best root farmers in all the Hollows. Tahn had been in their home a thousand times. Vendanj must be mistaken. Adopted? But his friend’s sheepish look confirmed what Vendanj had said. Tahn raised his brows in question. Sutter only shrugged.
“Never mind the revelations,” Vendanj went on. “As soon as preparations can be made, we must depart the Hollows.” He fastened his steely gaze on Braethen. “Why do you wear the crest of the Sodality? Are you received into the order?”
Braethen had already started to shake his head. “Not officially. I’ve been studying—”
“Can you use a sword?” Vendanj interrupted.
“I’ve held a sword before—”
“Have you been in battle?” Vendanj’s voice rose, impatient.
Braethen shook his head. “But I’ve been studying the Sodality for almost twenty years. I know what is required.”
A dark question showed in Vendanj’s face. “Do you? You knelt at the side of a dying man who spoke of the opening of the Bourne, of Velle and Quietgiven. What do you think, with all your wisdom, awaits us when we leave this place? Are you ready for that with your studies?”
Braethen looked abashed. The light Tahn had always seen in his eyes at the prospect of being a sodalist dimmed to nothing.
Vendanj wasn’t finished. “Lives will depend on this. Ideal notions read in a book or shouted from a rooftop won’t come to a single breath when the malice of the Quiet meets you in the darkness. Your mind will turn in upon itself and we will be forced to mother you while other lives fall.”
Braethen shrank in his chair. Tahn had never seen him so seriously chided through all the ridicule he’d taken his long life for wanting to live the values of the Sodality. It was cruel. Tahn’s own anger flared.
But words died in his throat as he watched Braethen not simply sit tall, but stand. Candlelight flickered, and shadows danced across the deep grain of the table. The smell of spent pine lingered from the fire, which popped and hissed as sap bubbled from the wood.
“Please, Sheason—”
“Hold, boy! Watch the mouth you use!” Vendanj himself stood up, his chair clattering back.
Terror rose in Braethen’s face. “My apologies, but please consider…” He stopped, looking at the implacable gaze of the man. Slowly, he pulled a scroll from his coat. The parchment still bore the broken seal. Tahn looked at Vendanj’s face, anticipating fiery anger. Instead, Vendanj said nothing, his face now placid.
Braethen placed the parchment upon the table, clearly unwilling to unroll it. He looked across at Vendanj, then down again at the scroll. It left silence in the room so profound that Tahn thought he could hear the candles burning.
“I know the stories,” Braethen said. “My father is an author, and I know the stories. It is how I know … the path you follow. And Ogea was my friend. I want to come. If not to become a sodalist, then to honor the man who believed I could have.”
In that instant, from the shadows emerged the girl Tahn had seen earlier. In the time of a thought, she stood at Vendanj’s right shoulder. Her appearance startled them all, though Tahn was glad to see her again. Her eyes caught the candlelight, reflecting it like bright hazel-grey mirrors. Her skin shone smooth and without blemish over high cheeks and a delicately formed nose. She’d braided back her dark hair. A black leather strip high around her neck bore the insignia of two white blades.
Vendanj appraised Braethen’s face. As he did so, the woman whispered into his ear. She stood taller than most women from the Hollows, almost Tahn’s own height. As she spoke, Tahn observed the line of her jaw and watched her words silently draw full lips into round shapes. The sepia glow of the room bathed her skin. A hand on Tahn’s shoulder made him jump. He twisted in his seat to receive Sutter’s wide grin.
“Very well,” Vendanj finally said. Tahn turned back, ignoring Sutter. “Only know this,” Vendanj cautioned. “Your friend is my friend, and his dead body yet lies in this very inn. I will not stand to see his memory trifled with. It is not romantic to keep the stories, it is not a dream you grow to fulfill. It is labor and sacrifice … and dangerous. To be a sodalist isn’t to know the word and use a sword. It’s to use the sword to defend the word. Knowing doesn’t qualify you by half. Not at all. Nevertheless, you may choose this for yourself. But mark me, more will be expected of you, Braethen, than to keep tales. More than you bargain for.”
At that moment, the woman rounded the table and laid a blade in front of Braethen. Nothing more on the subject needed to be said. But Tahn caught a look of fear in the would-be sodalist’s eyes.
In answer, Braethen returned the scroll to the folds of his coat and gripped the sword by its sheath. Vendanj nodded and turned toward Tahn, whose mouth hung agape.
Sheason!
Sutter, too, now stared. How did Braethen know?
This Vendanj was a renderer. Tahn felt the same awful portent he’d felt seeing the Velle in the woods. Raising the Will to his own design. It frightened Tahn to even bear him company.
Just then, Hambley entered with a large carafe of bitter and a wood platter of bread. The loaf steamed, bearing a glaze of goat butter. Behind him came his son, Mena, and kitchen help, carrying five large mugs. Hambley stopped short when he saw the girl. Adjusting quickly, he sent Mena back for another mug and proceeded to place a glass before each person seated at the table. The innkeep poured them all a full cup of dark, bitter ale, and filled the last when Mena returned. Hambley shooed his son away and took his seat, quaffing half his glass in one long pull.
“We will gather only what is necessary and go,” Vendanj began. “Say nothing to your families. You only put them in danger by sharing any of this.”
Tahn listened, his mind feeling fragmented. “Any of what?” he finally said. “If you mean the Bar’dyn, then we have to tell them. That’s the danger they face. And not just our families, but all of the Hollows.”
“He’s right,” Sutter added. “I don’t know how you knew about my parents, Vendanj, but I won’t leave my family if what Ogea said is true. I usually don’t care for the old stories. But something got to the reader, and I’ll be one who finds out what.”
“You ignorant boy.” The words were even, uninflected, and spoken by the girl beside Vendanj. “Have you no reason inside you? Have you not heard all that has been said?” Her words stayed Sutter’s reply. “From beyond your wood we have come, witnessed the breaking of a seal, witnessed the passing of a reader, and heard the invocation of names spoken together only when the One sent his Quiet into the land, when the War of the First Promise raged against the Sky.” Her voice carried cleanly as one who has not used tobaccom or bitter or been sick with the tremors. It rang with a certain wisdom that brought blood into Sutter’s cheeks.
“What makes you believe that your life is entirely your own,
that you can rush out and put yourself at risk?” A touch of derision crept into her voice. “Perhaps we should leave you here to dig roots.”
Vendanj raised a hand, signaling an end to the exchange. “This is Mira Far. She will be accompanying us.”
Tahn turned again in his seat, mouthing the word Far to Nails. Sutter stared, still embarrassed.
Braethen half stood. “Good to meet you, Mira.” Mira dipped her head to acknowledge the introduction. “But accompanying us where?” he asked.
“I will not say the name of it yet,” Vendanj replied. “For now, it is enough for you to know we must go.”
Tahn looked back at the stranger. The vagueness of the man’s reply gave him a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. What destination would need to be kept secret? The hidden answer unsettled him.
Hambley tore bread into large chunks and placed them within arms’ reach of his guests. “Take bread together, friends. It is nigh time for supper, and eating together makes stronger ties besides.” He lifted his glass and finished his bitter.
Each of the men ate, but Mira faded into the shadows near the outer wall, watching the street beyond through the window. In her cloak, she appeared little more than a shadow herself. But Tahn could still see the line of her jaw, held in a straight, almost regal posture. It reminded him of the mountain cats, the way their poised stillness belied readiness to strike. Rumors of the Far told of their gifts of stealth and swift movement. Still, the Far, if they’d ever existed at all, were said to be outlanders from the edge of the Soliel. Few believed the Soliel could support life anymore. Perhaps it was only her name, and not her lineage.
“Thank you, Hambley. You cause us to remember ourselves,” Vendanj said. He then took from inside his cloak the small, flat wooden case Tahn had noted before and removed a green stem. Tahn thought he smelled again the scent of peppermint. The Sheason put the sprig in his mouth, neither chewing or swallowing.
Tahn finally had to ask the question. “Vendanj, why would it endanger our families to speak of this?” Both Braethen and Sutter grew still.
The man eyed him. “You ask a central question, Tahn. And we should come to the point in it.” He motioned toward the door and, in a breath, Mira left the room. “The Bar’dyn are close. You heard this. But they have come because they seek to bring eternal Quiet upon the land, to cause it to dry and parch and yield no more its fruits.”
Tahn listened closely, seeking the answer to his question, while images of dry earth and watered skies mingled behind his eyes.
“And it is more than this. By your own account the Bar’dyn bring with them a renderer, a Velle, out of the Bourne. We must leave, and go secretly. Or else the knowledge you share with your family of what you’ve heard and seen will itself attract the attention of those who seek to put an end to all things. Do you see?”
“No.” Tahn’s impatience grew. Balatin had not taught him to follow blindly. “I don’t see!” He lowered his voice. “If it is Bar’dyn, if it is Velle, then we must stay and protect our homes, our families. How can you not understand that?”
Sutter nodded, putting his hand on Tahn’s arm in a show of support. Braethen only watched for what Vendanj would say next. The Sheason did not raise his voice; he did not betray any emotion. Instead he looked steadfastly at Tahn and took a long breath.
“Your loyalties do you credit. But you are wrong because your first premise is wrong. Return to your question, ‘Why does it endanger our families?’ It is because those out of the Bourne have come here for you.”
Tahn reeled at the suggestion, and shook his head. It was a mistake, or perhaps even a trick of the Sheason’s to get Tahn to do as he wished. Why him? How did Vendanj know? The Quiet could have come into the Hollows for Ogea, or Vendanj for that matter.
As if reading his thoughts, Vendanj said, “You may deny it, or seek another answer to your question, but the truth remains. The sooner you embrace it, the sooner we can do what must be done.”
Still struggling against it, Tahn felt some truth in what Vendanj said. And then something more occurred to him. If the Bar’dyn had come into the Hollows for him, then he was responsible for Ogea’s death. Following that, another thought stole into his mind as cold as the winter ice in the eaves of a Hollows home.
“If we stay, we endanger all the Hollows, don’t we,” he said. It was not a question.
“It is more, Tahn,” Vendanj explained. “They can sense you, taste your breath on the wind leagues distant. Leaving may preserve you, but it will surely preserve the town. They won’t waste time warring on the Hollows if they know you are gone. But if you remain, they will set upon this place with a vengeance. Any friends you have here will die.”
Dread tightened Tahn’s throat. His stomach roiled as the things Vendanj said coalesced in his mind. His thoughts sped past his need to know why the Bar’dyn had come for him—something that would occur to him later. Desperately he looked into the strange man’s placid face. “Ogea said they were coming from the east! Will and Sky, Wendra is alone!” Tahn jumped out of his seat and raced from the room, leaving the other men behind before they could speak a word.
* * *
Tahn rode for all he was worth and soon came to the rise where the firs thinned on the lee side of the hill. The road wound down to his and Wendra’s home, a stand of aspen on the near side. Lantern light shone in the windows and fell from an open door in a small rectangle. She waits on me, he thought. But something deeper, something low in his belly put the lie to that.
An open door …
He began pulling his arrow, gripping Jole’s sides tight with his legs. He descended into the shallow dale, the image of Ogea railing from atop the Fieldstone fixed in his mind. Bar’dyn, he’d said.
The road grew muddy. Jole did not slow, his hooves throwing sludge. A bolt of lightning arced through the sky. The peal of thunder shattered the silence and pushed through the small vale in waves, each one louder than the last. It echoed outward through the woods in diminishing tolls.
Vaguely, the whispering sound of rain on trees floated toward Tahn. The soft smells of earth and pollen hung on the air, charged with the coming of another storm. Cold perspiration beaded on his forehead and neck.
An open door …
Wendra would not leave the house open to the chill.
Passing the stable, Jole began to slow. As Tahn prepared to jump, another bolt of white fire erupted from the sky, this time striking the ground. It hit at the near end of the vale. The thunder immediately exploded around him. Simultaneously, a scream went up from inside his home. Jole reared, tugging at his reins and throwing Tahn to the ground before racing for the safety of the stable. Tahn lost his bow and began frantically searching the mud for his dropped weapon. The sizzle of falling rain rose, a lulling counterpoint to the screams that continued from inside. Something crashed to the floor of the cabin. Then a wail rose up, a strange howl filled with glee and hatred. It sounded at once deep in the throat, like the thunder, and high in the nose, like a child’s mirth.
Tahn’s heart drummed in his ears and neck and chest. His throat throbbed with it. Wendra was in there! He found his bow and the one arrow. Shaking the mud and water from the bowstring and quickly cleaning the arrow’s fletching on his coat, he sprinted for the door. He nocked the arrow and leapt to the stoop.
The home had grown suddenly still and quiet.
Tahn burst in, holding his aim high and loose.
An undisturbed fire burned in the hearth, but everything else in his home lay strewn or broken. The table had been toppled on its side, earthen plates broken into shards across the floor. Food was splattered against one wall and puddled near a cooking pot in the far corner. Wendra’s few books sat partially burned near the fire, their thrower’s aim not quite sure.
Tahn saw it all in a glance as he swung his bow to the left where Wendra had tucked her bed up under the loft.
She lay atop her quilts, knees up and legs spread.
No, Will it not
!
Then, within the shadows beneath the loft, Tahn saw it, a hulking mass standing at the foot of Wendra’s bed. It hunched over, too tall to remain upright in the nook beneath the upper room. Its hands cradled something in a blanket of horsehair. The smell of sweat and blood and new birth commingled with the aroma of Wendra’s cooking pot.
The creature slowly turned its massive head toward him. Wendra looked, too, her eyes weary but alive with fright. She weakly reached one arm toward him, mouthing something, but unable to speak.
In a low, guttural voice the creature spoke. “Quillescent all around.” It rasped the words in thick, glottal tones, the way outlanders spoke when they hadn’t yet mastered the common tongue.
“Bar’dyn,” Tahn muttered. His disbelief fell away.
CHAPTER SIX
Payment in Oaths
The man with sun-darkened skin strode in the early morning light, a thin cloak wrapped around his shoulders. In the land of his home, he’d have had no need of the garment. But here in the frost-covered hills at dawn, the chill had its bite. And while, for his part, the man might have borne that without complaint, the child he cradled close to his chest beneath the folds of that cloak would not.
The babe slept as the man walked neither slow nor hurried. Purposefully.
He knew his destination, and would arrive soon enough. So he kept a careful eye and a measured pace. When he came to the place, he wanted the infant rested.
He also kept his own counsel as he climbed hills, descended valleys, and marched down long stretches of road beneath the overarching branches of sycamore, hemlock, and oak. The child slept all the while, unaware of what awaited it when sun would first touch the sky. The man had stopped to feed the babe several times a day; it made for slow going. But an end to that drew near. The man felt the pangs of relief and loss all at once. As he ever did.
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