The Sheason and the boy left without a further word, leaving the four from the Hollows alone in the room. Tahn rested back onto his pillow, and sighed.
“I want him at my next birthday,” Sutter jested.
The rest stifled a bout of giggles that lifted the pall they all felt. Soon they spoke hurriedly of all that had happened to them, sharing freely and laughing in amazement over wondrous events. Tahn kept back a few things, unwilling to worry his friends, and unable to shake the Sheason’s words to Penit: an ultimate price.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Tokens
Vendanj strode the marbled halls of Solath Mahnus. He had an appointment to keep. Or rather, the regent and his old friend Artixan had to receive him. There were matters to discuss, and he would no longer be patient or silent. So he did not notice the grandeur of the halls, the history engraved in the marble, the sculpture and art depicting kings and war and the beautiful promise of the land that filled the high vaulted ceilings of the seat of the regent and her council.
This night, Helaina and Artixan would take his counsel.
Mira accompanied him. Vedanj had told her he meant to visit the regent and the venerable Sheason by himself. But she’d insisted, which was unusual for her. So he acceded to her request.
He knew where they would be: The regent’s High Office, the singular room at the top of Solath Mahnus, the eight sides of which each showed a unique view of Recityv. After the events of the day, there would be strategy to create; she always started with Artixan, as well she should.
At the final stair, two of her elite Emerit guard stepped in front of Vendanj and Mira. Other watches on their ascent through Solath Mahnus had deferred to the three-ring sigil at Vendanj’s neck. These did not.
“I am not Sheason Rolen,” Vendanj said coolly. “If I’d wanted to harm the regent, she would already be dead. You know I have been in her company today already.”
The two shared a wary look, then stepped back. Vendanj climbed the long marble stair, this one windowless and dark, and at the top did not knock, but threw back the double doors and went in. Mira slipped in silently and stood like a shadow just inside the door against the wall.
“Do join us,” the regent said.
“I told you he would come,” Artixan said to the regent with a smile.
“Yes, but you did not say he would show such disrespect.” She gave Vendanj a measured look.
“I do not have time for etiquette or the show of deference. You know of my esteem, my Lady, but we are running out of time.” Vendanj shut the doors behind him.
“It is worse than you know.” Artixan stepped in front of the great window that faced the south. “The leader of the League, Ascendent Staned, has called for a meeting of the High Council to review the regent’s special clemency in releasing the two boys.”
“That is the regent’s privilege. It has been a part of Recityv law for ages.” Vendanj looked at the old woman. “Do not allow him to convene such a hearing. It will undermine you utterly. And we will need the strength of your office when the Convocation of Seats begins.”
The regent shared a wan smile. “It is too late. I knew that releasing Tahn and the others would invite Roth to this action. Long has he wished to limit the power of this office—if he cannot have it for himself. He likewise is lobbying for shared control of the Recityv army. Van Steward is well loved and a mighty general, so that’s a political front on which the Ascendant is currently losing. But,” she said, “if he prevails in this attack on my right to overturn the decisions at court, it won’t be long before the office of regent will be merely ceremonial.” She looked around the grand High Office.
Vendanj spared a look at the greatroom, a sanctuary built atop the several halls and palaces that comprised a man-made mountain in the heart of Recityv. Here she kept her precious books, strategic war maps, and other secrets a regent must have. It spoke, too, of her refinement, the white marble bedecked sparingly, but elegantly.
“What of your journey to Restoration?” Artixan still looked south at the window.
“When the boys are rested, we will go. They are still weak.”
The regent took a seat at her long desk. “You’ll need to leave quickly, tonight, under the cover of dark. And know that even then, I may be compelled to add my guard to pursue you. Roth does not remain idle.”
Vendanj nodded understanding.
“Restoration, Vendanj. Do you believe in the boy?” Artixan asked.
“He has many questions. And they are worthy questions. But they cloud his mind.” Vendanj crossed the room and looked from the northwest window. “Nothing is certain but that the Quiet descends upon us. No amount of rhetoric in these halls can make that untrue. The League’s denial is either naive or bears a more insidious meaning. Either way, they are dividing the people’s attention and leaving us all unprepared.”
“The people’s attention is not all that is divided, Vendanj.” Artixan came into the middle of the High Office. “You know this. The Order of Sheason itself is fractured. If you fail at Restoration, support for the way you would have the order meet this threat will also fail. Your only recourse will be to become an outlaw.” He sighed. “You are a mere half step from that now.”
Vendanj turned on them. “There is more. The League has arrested the seat holder from Risill Ond. After all this time, and their peaceful seclusion, they answered the call of the regent’s convocation only to be treated to the hospitality of your dungeons. The League will take that vote in your convocation if you do not free the man and set it straight.”
At this news, the regent’s brow furrowed.
“And if that seat, how many others have been compromised?” Artixan’s question came low and sad and ominous.
“I leave you to deal with the League leadership. But as for the rest…” Vendanj walked to the long table that served as the regent’s desk. He looked across its polished surface at her weary face, feeling some pity but also indignation. He recalled a list of names and an infant’s grave and fire again touched his heart. With steady fingers he drew open his pouch and tossed a snake’s head and a swatch of a child’s blanket onto the desk before her.
The regent recoiled not in fear but surprise, then studied the artifacts. Artixan came close.
“The ignominy you foisted upon Denolan may have been warranted, but the sentence was not. This cradle at the edge of the Scar is finished.”
“You do not have the authority—”
“I claim the authority!” Vendanj railed. “I bear no hate for you, Helaina. But with the power of the Will that I bear I will strike down even you if you do not put an end to this vile chain that keeps Denolan there.”
“You forget yourself!” The regent stood.
Artixan came to stand at her right shoulder. “Vendanj, your passion makes you unwise.”
“No,” he said. “I see more clearly than you both because I walk in the places where the suffering is dire and the cries of the afflicted go unanswered and unremembered.” He took up the swatch of blanket, his heart aching at its very touch. The token brought quiet reverence to what he said next. “Not three days since did I come upon your cradle in the Scar with your exile, and found a babe dead, bitten by a viper brought down out of the Bourne. A sign, a message.”
The regent and her Sheason counselor looked at the snake’s head, understanding in their eyes.
“The Quiet knows how you fetter your former Emerit, Helaina, and they persecute him by stealing the life of one too young to even know it needed defense.” Vendanj stared them down. “It ends. Now.”
They stared back, beginning, he thought, to bear some grief over the loss. They said nothing, he hoped, because their throats were tight with the awful image of what had happened.
“Grant will stay in the Scar if you ask him to, if that’s what you deem fit for his treason. But he goes with me to Restoration—though he would rather not leave his barren home, and though he no longer feels at ease in the company of men—and
he goes to help these children out of the Hollows try to answer a need that is larger than they realize. I don’t know how long we will be gone. But the one thing I would spare him, the one thing you should wish to spare us all, is the concern that a babe may die if he is not there to receive it.
“And mark me: I will not bury another babe. The day I do, I will forsake these vestments and make a mortal enemy of any who put such children at risk.”
The regent heard the threat but did not falter under Vendanj’s hard glare; neither did she rebuke him.
“Do this,” Vendanj finished, “or when we return from the end of all things, kill Denolan. Execute him as you do any traitor. You know him, Helaina. He would stand up for that.”
The regent looked back thoughtfully. “Yes,” she said, “he would.”
Vendanj’s wrath receded. He looked at these old friends. “I ask this,” he said, “because it is right. If you search your hearts, you will know it, too.”
The regent reached out, and Vendanj put the portion of the child’s blanket in her hand. As she looked down, tears came to her eyes. For that instant, the regent was replaced by the mother who had lost her child. Without looking up, she nodded. “No more children will I send to the cradle,” she said softly. “Please tell Denolan.”
Vendanj reached out and placed his hand over the regent’s as she smoothed the child’s blanket. “Thank you, Anais.”
He looked up at Artixan, whose wrinkled face held a glint of pride despite the roughness he’d seen in Vendanj. Each servant has his way, the look said. And for his part, Vendanj had meant every word he’d uttered. In some things, you went all the way, or not at all.
“I meant to ask you,” Artixan said. “What was in the fourth scrivener stick? What did it hold?”
Vendanj looked past the regent and the aging Sheason to the window that showed a sweeping vista of the west. “I have not opened it yet. My heart restrains me. But I know its purpose, and I dread the day that breaking that seal becomes necessary. I pray it never does.”
He then remembered a promise he had made, and added, “Our friend Ogea has gone to his earth. It was the Quiet that brought him to it.” Vendanj paused, reflecting on the reader. “He wanted you to know that it was something you taught him which helped him evade the Bar’dyn long enough to reach the Hollows before his wounds overcame him.”
* * *
Vendanj had turned to leave, his business done, when Mira stepped into the room’s center and took the regent’s attention.
“And what would you say to us, Mira Far? I would hope to be better used by your words than I have been by your friend’s.” The regent offered a slight smile.
Mira stared silently for a moment at the woman, sparing a last thought for what she was about to do. The regent looked back, still mighty in spirit and with the command and loyalty of an army, not to mention the favor of many nations, though not all. “I have a trade to make. One you can ill afford to ignore.”
The regent shared a look with Artixan and even Vendanj, whose eyes still registered some surprise that Mira had chosen to speak at all, and with a bargain no less. “Go on,” the regent said.
“Your Convocation of Seats will not be full this third time, any more than it was the second or first ages ago.” Mira held the regent’s steady stare. “And this time, my Lady, with all due respect, anything short of full participation dooms your efforts before they are begun. Do you disagree?”
The regent paused to consider before responding. In her eyes, Mira saw the weight of a lifetime of experience. “No, I don’t disagree. But then, what does full participation mean? We have never had the Mal Nations join us, nor the lands across the seas. And those few principalities that haven’t lent us their swords don’t add much to our political or military strength anyway—”
“The Far have never answered your call,” Mira cut in. “Both prior requests that the Far king attend the convocation to represent his quiet, distant nation went unanswered.”
The regent sat forward in her chair, anticipation of what was coming clear on her brow. “No, they have not. And yet, the Convocation of Seats has prevailed anyway.”
There was challenge in the regent’s words. But Mira knew it was hollow.
Artixan came up close, staring over the regent’s head. “Be wary of what you say, Mira Far. In the seclusion of the High Office the regent is more herself, but always she is the reigning voice in Recityv and all of Vohnce. So mind your words and promises.”
Mira had already weighed what came next. She leveled her gaze. “Regent of Vohnce, my sister is the Far queen, or was until several days ago, when she passed from this life.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” the old woman said.
“Thank you, my Lady.” Mira paused a moment, for what she was about to commit was not only unprecedented, but had many ramifications. “I will guarantee that King Elan, or whoever the rightful successor may now be, will return here promptly to take the Far seat. And may the convocation be blessed by our presence.”
The regent stared, unbelieving. Mira knew that other races and kingdoms long ago had ceased to depend on the Far, so much so that most no longer believed—if they ever had—that her people existed. “And what would you have in trade?” the regent asked.
Without hesitation, Mira replied, “The freedom of the leagueman framed in our dissent today.”
The regent began to shake her head. “No, that would undermine my power—”
“On the contrary, your decision in this would show to your people that you are not afraid to make decisions that defy the League. And it would have the added benefit of letting your people know that you are not afraid to have the Sheason in the streets to do their duty.” Mira then waited while the regent and her counselor thought.
“How can you guarantee the actions of the Far king?”
Mira nodded in appreciation of the question. “You’ll have to trust me. But if you need a witness to my honor, Vendanj can speak it well enough.”
The regent finally stood again, and came around her long table to stand in front of Mira. She stared at one eye, then the other, and seemed to wait for some internal question to solidify. “Why?” she asked. “What is it to you if he dies?”
It was a cold question, Mira thought. But not unexpected from a woman who had sent armies to war, where lives were lost. Mira wondered if the regent still would have asked the question if she’d seen the mother and daughter grieving in the small room beneath the gallery. “Eventually you’ll have to decide if Recityv will continue to follow the growing ignorance that would ultimately enslave it, or recognize the war that no longer waits, but comes against you even now. I have seen the smallest hints of the war that is about to come upon you.” Mira’s sharp gaze did not relent, and she made sure the regent noted every word that came next. “Your Convocation of Seats will be a magnificent failure in your hour of need, unless the Far join with men to repel the Quiet, now and for good.”
“But what is it about the leagueman?” the regent repeated.
“It is simple really.” Mira spoke with soft tones. “He is innocent. He is a father. This injustice is affecting more than the man you wrap with chains.”
The regent nodded understanding. “Very well. I will release him to his family. But I will hold you to your vow, Mira Far.”
As though she hadn’t heard, Mira pressed on. “I need your word on more than simple release. You must have a court guard assigned to him and his family, to keep them safe. If anything unnatural happens to him, those responsible will be accountable … to me. I will see to that accounting, and it will be bitter.”
“You and the Sheason practice a unique brand of diplomacy.” The regent’s words elicited a soft laugh from Artixan. “Very well, the leagueman shall be freed this very day and given a new life, far enough from here that no one will remember them from this unseemly event, so that they can live in peace.”
Mira nodded. Warm satisfaction flooded her.
She caught
a look from Vendanj that suggested he’d never heard her say so much at one time. She thought she saw approval, and a new level of respect.
Now she had only to convince King Elan to attend this convocation. This gathering of standards and crowns would be the last, she felt, before the idea of the convocation was lost or replaced or dismantled forever. If the Far nation were ever going to rejoin the world of mankind, it was now, especially if Tahn failed at the Heights of Restoration. Because if the Hollows boy failed, then the defenses of nations would be all that stood between the races south of the Pall, and the Quiet.
She may have just commited the Far to war to save a man and his family. But her people could no longer remain aloof to the concerns of mankind, nor could they remain alone in their covenant and commission to protect the covenant tongue. Perhaps the covenant, from the beginning, had meant more than simply preserving a language anyway. If the Quiet came, the stillness of the Bourne came in equal measure to all the races in the eastlands. And mankind surely needed the Far.
It was time to fight or die.
But King Elan had his own thoughts on the matter. And he would be exceedingly angry.
Mira had a plan to deal with that, too.
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
Garlen’s Telling
Beyond the window of the levate healing room, darkness had fallen, interrupted only by the glow of lights from distant windows in the Recityv night. Braethen stared out, new knowledge weighing upon him. The others had returned, dressed for the cold in thick cloaks and high-collared coats. Vendanj and Grant spoke softly near the door. Mira had not yet returned.
An uneasy feeling tugged at Braethen’s gut.
He’d spent hours reading all he could find on Restoration. It was an end place: at the other side of the Eternal Grove.
Much of what he had found had been written in other tongues, writings he struggled to decipher. But the most he could discern was the idea of atonement.
And no story Braethen knew that took this idea as a theme ever ended well.
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