“Enough!” Vendanj said in a raised voice.
But Grant didn’t stop. “And you, Far, what covenants do you break by coming into the lands of men? You are either more like me in exile 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 again. His voice boomed in the house, crashing down from the crossbeams and echoing off the floor. “These are not the words of the man who kept a straight back beneath the weight of irons and named his accusers. Beware that your sentence does not make you foolish.”
“Speak softly to dead men, Sheason,” Grant returned. “There’s no threat that moves us.” His gaze did not flinch from Vendanj.
The Sheason returned the stony stare. “We went to the Hollows to find Tahn.”
At that, Grant’s eyes lit with interest.
“Through Myrr and over the High Plains we came,” Vendanj related. “But on the north face we were separated. He is lost to us, hopefully moving toward Recityv.”
Grant clenched his jaw. The man from the Scar looked past them all at the three standing in the shadow of the back hall. Whispers passed among them.
“I belong here, Sheason,” he said. “The world beyond the Scar is not mine anymore.”
Vendanj sat stiffly in his seat and shook his head. His eyes flashed with disgust. From where Braethen stood, the force of his anger was palpable. “Then answer me this one question,” the Sheason said.
Grant looked him in the eye.
“Why have you hardly aged a day since you were exiled?”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The Untabernacled
The man showed a toothy grin and reached to take Tahn’s hand in greeting. Tahn held his arm rigid, gritting his teeth beneath his lips. His jaw dropped when Sevilla’s hand passed through his own without so much as a bump.
Tahn stared in disbelief at his fingers. Everything around him began to happen very quickly. 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 hat and scabbard that showed such refinement became a filthy sash and a spate of unkempt, knotted hair that hung like the dark strands of an old mop. Behind him, Tahn heard Sutter draw his sword, the scrape of metal being bared somehow reassuring.
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,” he said. “There still, though through the vaults of Stonemount I may wander.” Anger surged in his visage, pure hatred contorting his face. “I want my own temple!”
Sevilla leapt forward with startling speed, his hands rising toward Tahn’s throat. Sutter called a warning, and Tahn dropped backward into a roll. Sevilla raced through the air where Tahn had stood. As Sevilla turned, a shriek tore through the wilds. Sutter jumped between them as Tahn struggled to gain 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, moving with surprising speed. Sutter started to swing, but had only cocked his blade when Sevilla shot an arm into his chest, the creature’s gnarled fist plunging deep within Sutter’s flesh. Nails dropped his sword, his body tensing.
Tahn watched his friend writhe on Sevilla’s arm and knew with sudden, dark knowledge that the creature could touch man when it meant to cause him harm. Cords stood out in sharp relief on his friend’s neck as he twisted and fought to free himself. But it appeared as though the being 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 would not harm the insubstantial creature. There was nothing he could do. How could he destroy something he could not touch? His mind filled with the sudden image of himself standing upon the precipice prepared to fire into emptiness. His heart told him it was the answer, but he did not understand.
Relaxing his draw, Tahn 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 Tahn severed his connection to the beast. His friend 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. He must shoot, but he had no faith in the arrow.
The being lurched forward, menace contorting its withered features. Words hissed from Sevilla’s lips, but Tahn could not discern their meaning. It did not rush, but came on slowly, as though preparing for some arcane ritual. Tahn thought he could still see the prim hat and decorative scabbard, the fine cloak and trimmed hem of his garment, all still somehow in the ratty remains of the figure before him.
Tahn slowly stood and uncertainly faced Sevilla. He then cast his arrow to the ground between them and drew back his string again. Sevilla paused, concern narrowing in 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 heard turning. His entire body began to quake uncontrollably, as though vibrating with the same strident hum he heard in his head. If he’d had an arrow prepared, it would have fallen from its string.
The air continued to howl about them as Sevilla took another guarded step forward. Tahn drew his string farther, his heart pounding in every joint of his body. He looked at the shape of the hammer on his left hand to gain steadiness, and whispered the oldest words he knew: “I draw with the strength of my arms, but release as the Will allows.” The familiar phrase was both a prayer and an imprecation. Despite the terrible tremors wracking his flesh, his strength and thought and emotion coalesced as he had never before experienced.
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 immediately falling 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 in mottled rags, but his face had again become 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.
Then everything went dark.
* * *
Sutter writhed on the root-choked floor of the wilds.
His soul ached.
The moment Sevilla had put his unearthly hand into his chest, he’d taken hold of something inside him. It hurt differently than a cut or broken bone. This hurt was not of flesh, but somehow of spirit. He felt as though this creature had laid hold of his soul. And its icy touch had taught him an awful, immutable truth: His Forda could be separated from his body.
For a terrible moment, he thought this disembodied spirit wished to possess him and force Sutter’s soul into the empty existence in which it had lived. But as soon as the thought came, it dissipated like breath on glass. And then he realized he knew what Sevilla (or whatever its true name was) sought. It hunted for the Stonemounts to try and find its spirit a tabernacle of its own. Did it also then hope that if it could somehow inhabit the bones of a Stonemount man,
it might take on a mortal life?
Even through his pain, Sutter’s mind flashed on the notion that true life, true wholeness, came not when spirit merely inhabited flesh, but that there was something more to it. And so Sevilla, lacking that, was … damned!
The creature wailed at the thought, somehow, through its unearthly connection with Sutter, hearing and knowing his mind.
Then the struggle began in earnest.
With the intention of taking possession of Sutter’s body, this penaebra meant to rip Sutter’s soul from his body and cast it to the wilds. Sutter could feel himself shifting inside his body, his spirit wrestling to remain whole within its bodily tabernacle.
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. Somehow, with the eyes of his inner self he could view the unseen world filled with the untabernacled—spirits with no body. It haunted him with its severe serenity, even as he struggled to get free of Sevilla’s hold.
Only vaguely was he aware of Tahn—movement somewhere nearby.
And his soul began to slip.
An awful comfort stole over him, a dreadful security in leaving the uncertainty of future choices. He looked about him, embracing the final reality that existed all around. He caught the violet and black and cerulean world in snatches through the creature’s mortal embrace.
And at the furthest reaches of his mind, a wry thought halted his surrender: I am being plucked from my own body like a root from dry ground. And on its heels came another thought: I am more than a single shoot. And I mean to honor the sacrifice of the hands that gave my own a chance in the soil.
So he fought back against the snatching of his life from his body.
But the burn and tear of spirit from flesh became too exquisite to bear, and soon real death seemed to beckon.
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 had forced the creature’s release.
He knew in his agony that a part of him had been lost, stolen.
And something else gained.
* * *
Drops of rainwater struck Tahn’s cheek. He woke and more rain fell into his open, troubled eyes. The knit of intertwined branches obscured his view of the sky, and caused the rain to gather in the leaves before falling. The fire had burned out, hissing as rain plopped into the cooling embers. He wiped his face, spreading the moisture to try to refresh himself. He lay unmoving and listened to the sizzle of the storm as it struck the upper leaves of the wilds. He’d never been to the port of Su’Winde, but Hambley had been there once in his youth, and described the sound of waves crashing against the shore as nearly the same as a good storm whipping against the bark and limbs of Hollows pine. This was that sound.
Tahn wanted to lie and let the rain fall on him and lose himself in the sound that seemed to hide him. But Sutter let out a weak moan, and Tahn forced himself to sit up. He could discern Nails only as a familiar dark shape in the recess of night-shadow beneath the canopy of trees overhead. Tahn tried to stand, but his legs cramped under him. So he rolled over and dragged himself to Sutter.
His friend lay clutching his chest. No wound marred his clothing; no blood stained his hands.
“Are you all right?” The words sounded foolish as soon as they came out.
Sutter drew breath to speak, but coughed in the attempt and winced in pain, grabbing his chest with both arms. He rolled onto his side and curled into a ball until the convulsions passed. Weakly he whispered, “Cold.”
“I’ll get your blanket,” Tahn said and tried again to stand. His legs refused, and he sat hard next to Sutter.
“Inside,” his friend added, touching his chest.
Tahn looked back to where Sevilla had disappeared into the trees. What if he returns? What if I had tried to release an empty bow? He scanned the trees around them and satisfied himself that they were alone. They couldn’t stay here. Maybe the strange creature whose hand he could not feel would not come back. But maybe there were more of whatever he was.
“We have to get out of here,” Tahn said.
Sutter nodded, his eyes still shut tight. He peeled his lips back and spoke through gritted teeth. “I can’t ride.”
The rain began to fall in earnest, growing louder in the flat leaves and running to the ground like miniature waterfalls. The fire coals hissed and steamed more loudly, sending waves of smoke into the air. Tahn folded his knees under him and again sat up. He looked around for long branches to build a litter, and spotted a deadfall not far from the horses. He tried a third time to stand, but his legs held him for only a moment before tumbling him forward into the gnarled surface roots of the trees. One knee cracked hard against a large, knotted root. His head pulsed with the rapid beating of his heart, blurring his vision. Each breath seemed to rush into his blood and push his heart faster. He shook his head and dragged himself through the mud and mulch to the dead wood. Lying on his side, he pulled two long limbs and one shorter piece from the tangle.
Working against the growing pain, he retrieved a length of rope from Jole’s saddle. He lashed the wood together in a slender triangle, and rigged a sling between the poles before laying his blanket across it.
He then gathered their horses’ reins, hoping to secure the litter and find the north passage.
The wilds lit as lightning flared in the sky above. A mere second later, a powerful clap of thunder boomed around them. The air seemed to explode with the smell of ozone, rushing as though propelled by the boom. Sutter’s horse bucked and tried to tear free. Tahn held on, the reins pulling him up like a puppet whose leg-strings have been cut. The horse reared again, this time tearing the leather from Tahn’s hand, slicing his palm. In an instant, the horse sprinted into the darkness of the wilds and was gone. Jole rolled wide eyes and stamped about, but did not jerk his reins from Tahn’s hand.
When he got Jole back to Sutter, he attempted to hitch the litter to Jole’s saddle horn. But when Tahn stood, his head swam, and he fell to the ground. He beat at his legs, but could feel nothing, the numbness spreading into his fingers and back. What’s happening? I don’t have time for this. He buried his face in the mud and screamed his frustration, tasting the richness of the soil and the decay of last year’s leaves, ground mites, and worms. The earth muffled his cry.
Tahn crawled back to Sutter to roll him onto the litter. As he pulled at his friend’s shoulder, Nails opened his eyes, a pained but clear look in them. “Leave me.”
“What?” Tahn asked, his head ablaze with pain.
“You can’t make it hauling me like this. And I can’t take the ride over the roots.” Sutter grimaced, trying to smile. “How do you like that, Woodchuck, undone by the very things I tried to flee.”
Tahn ignored him. He pulled Sutter’s shoulder over and laid his friend on his back. Tahn then worked himself onto his knees and heaved Sutter into the litter. He retrieved the blanket and covered him. His friend was wet, but the wool would keep him warm. Tahn looked back at Jole. How would he hitch the litter and mount his horse?
Another burst of light flickered, the thunder seeming to come before the light faded. The noise eclipsed the patter of rain and the sound of his own heart in his ears. Rainwater ran into his eyes and plastered his hair to his cheeks and neck. In his mind he tried to recall the words of the man from his dream, and touched the familiar shape on the back of his hand. All he could think of was a funnel of water driving a bull elk to a muddy, watery death … and the moment he did not avenge Wendra in her birthbed.
His friend began to lose coherence, babbling, “The spirit is not whole, Tahn. It’s not whole. It can be divided. Given out. Taken. Small portions separated from the whole…”
Tahn paused to listen to his friend. A strange truth resonated in Sutter’s demented ramblings. Then Sutter passed out. At least the pain had left his face. Tahn r
asped breaths, his throat pulsing now like his head, aching and burning. He wondered if Sutter might dream of waking to a still dawn, cloudless and warm.
Tahn dropped to his belly and inched his way to Jole. Clenching one end of a rope between his teeth, he cut another length and tied the other end of it to the apex of the litter. Then he took hold of the stirrup and hoisted himself up. On his feet, he could not tell that he stood, save that his eyes told him so. He hooked his arm under his knee and lifted his foot toward the stirrup. He jabbed his boot in and took hold of the horn. His hands went numb and he could not feel the jut of the saddle against his chest. With one great effort he thrust himself up over the saddle, and shimmied around until his leg fell onto Jole’s other flank. He managed to get his other boot tucked into its stirrup, pulled the rope from his teeth, and wrapped it around the horn. With clumsy fingers, he tied it, then took a deep, searing breath.
On the ground, water now traveled in small streams, pooling in low hollows. Tahn was glad Sutter had fallen unconscious; he would not feel the jouncing of the litter across the roots.
Last, Tahn cut yet another piece of rope and fastened it around his own waist. He then tied the ends to the saddle horn, as well.
Clucking to Jole, he let down the reins. He would trust his old friend to take them ahead and out of the wilds. It was all he could focus to do. Trees passed, one the same as the last. His eyes burned as if they, too, had fever, and moments later he could no longer feel his arms or chest. He slumped forward and tried to keep his balance, whispering encouragement to Jole until the numbness entered his face and took his ability to speak.
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