The Burden of Memory

by Welcome Cole

  Eo Naehg Lek, the name of Prae’s keep, was an old form of Vaemysh that translated roughly into Crows’ Ghost Keep. He thought he’d never heard so apt a description of any place in his life. It was as loathsome a fortress as he’d ever had the misfortune to enter. Built perilously high above the most chaotic jumble of a rock-strewn butte he’d ever seen, the fortress was a riot of mutant angles and angry curves. An intricate spider’s web of secret passages and corridors crawled through the earth beneath it. They were said to penetrate all the way through Calevia’s heart and on to the other side of her.

  The keep was said to have been carved from a mountain. It was said the construction of the keep had exhausted the mountain so thoroughly that the ruggish hill beneath it was all that remained. One only had to look at this massive castle to believe it. Not even the ancient castles of the Allied Nations were nearly as big as this monstrosity.

  That was what was said. But he knew very well that most of the stories told about the keep were complete bullshit, stories repeated again and again across too many generations to count.

  What he knew to be truth was that five dungeons lurked beneath the keep proper. Each dungeon was built in multiple levels with countless cells and chambers, some of which hadn’t been visited by mortal eyes in centuries. The deepest dungeon held a Fire Caeyl forge. Fueled by the earth’s own heat, it was said that pit penetrated to the very gate of the ninth hell. It was here the madman summoned his demon lackeys, just as his mentor had attempted to do before him.

  Kaelif sighed and shook his head. These were thoughts too morbid to dwell on now. He had to save his energy for planning the end of the story. They’d see that wretched castle burned to the ground soon enough, its stones scattered across their reservation to make fences, walls, and houses. This he knew to be true, and he was fully ready to die in the accomplishment of it if that was what the Father required of him.

  Seth twisted around from his seat in the bow. “Kad’r!” he whispered urgently, “Look there!”

  The boy pointed toward the right bank. Kaelif studied the shore but couldn’t see anything through the colorless dusk. Second night was coming on fast.

  “What are you pointing at?” he asked quietly.

  “There, Kad’r,” Seth said, jabbing again in the same direction, “That log.”

  Then he saw it. A fat old log worked its way along the lazy current a few yards out from the bank. Half hidden in the shadows of the dense reeds lining the shore, it was a couple hundred feet ahead of their skiff and drifting their way. As they paddled closer, he spied what looked like a curious splash of blue paint on top of the log.

  He silently directed Gyf to maneuver their skiff toward it.

  As they grew closer, he realized that wasn’t paint on the log at all. It was cloth. A body dressed in some kind of blue garment lay partially atop the log. Kaelif quickly surveyed the grass along the riverbank just beyond it. The forest was younger here and set further back so that there was no place for anyone to hide, even in the growing gloom of dusk. There didn’t appear to be any obvious threat.

  “Turn toward the shore,” he whispered to his crew, “I want to intercept it.”

  Their boat surged silently forward.

  The log scraped along the shoreline now. It bumped against a logjam of lost branches, then bounced gently back out into the river, rotating lazily back into the current. The form on top of it didn’t move.

  “Faster,” he told his warriors, “Don’t let it drift past.”

  As they moved in, he lost any doubts that it was a body spilled atop the log. It looked to be a woman, or maybe a small man. A shock of long dirty yellow hair spilled over the curve of the log like a snared cobweb. He couldn’t tell if the body held a spirit from this distance. He nudged Seth and pointed at the water, saying, “Take a listen.”

  Despite the superb taer-cael conductivity of still water, he knew the boy would never sense the log or the body’s vibrations from this distance. Moving water created too many sounds of its own. Instead, the command was intended as a lesson in strategy: start listening farther out than you believe you’ll be able to hear; strive to perfectly understand the borders of your ability.

  Seth leaned over the edge of the shallow boat exactly as directed. He slipped his head into the water until his face sliced through it.

  Watching the log drift closer, Kaelif felt a wave of unease, though he wasn’t sure why. He’d seen more bodies in his day than he could count, so why this odd sense of disharmony now? A blue clad body drifting down the Dragor River in the middle of nowhere? What was odd about that?

  He suddenly found himself laughing.

  Seth pulled up from the river, throwing the water from his hair with flick of his head. He looked back at Kaelif. “He’s too far out to hear a heartbeat, Kad’r,” he whispered, spitting some water back into the river, “Sorry.”

  “Or maybe there’s no heartbeat to hear,” Kaelif said to the boy. As he drew his sword he added, “Still, better safe than sorry.”

  He twisted around toward the other boat trailing a few yards behind them. He sent Pool, the warrior in the bow, a signal. Pool acknowledged him and traded his oar for a bow.

  Their oars were nearly silent as they efficiently slid through the river. If that were a Vaemyn waiting for them, there’d be no surprise approach. Then again, he seriously doubted that would be the case. No Vaemyn would wear so garish a color as the blue adorning this body, not in the field especially. And it was much too far north for Vaemysh civilians to be loitering about.

  As he studied it, Kaelif realized this wasn’t just a drifting log. It was a dugout. Or at least, it was a dugout in process. The bark had been completely removed and one end carved into a crude bow. The body laid in the indentation of what would’ve been the deck and, eventually, the pilot’s seat. Judging by the clothes worn on the corpse, he figured this boat in progress was likely stolen property. A woodsman typically didn’t wear brightly dyed shirts.

  The bow of their boat slid skillfully alongside the dugout. Seth grabbed the stern and Kaelif the bow. As they pulled the boat to a stop beside them, Kaelif gave the body careful a poke with his sword.

  There was no response. Seth looked back at him and shrugged.

  Kaelif again poked the body, jabbing more firmly this time. Much to his surprise, this time the body moaned and attempted to raise its head. Though the effort was unsuccessful, Kaelif saw enough to know this body was no more than a boy. His yellow hair was a tangled mess of sticks and leaves, his shirt as frayed and tattered as a gunnysack.

  He jabbed the boy again, harder now.

  This time, the body slowly pushed itself up from the wood. The young face turned toward them, looking over at their boat with the confusion of one abruptly awoken from a deep dream. He was Parhronii, and he was waterlogged beyond belief. He looked more like something they’d be likely to drag up from the river depths than find floating above it.

  “Don’t move, son,” Kaelif said in Parhronii standard, “We’re not here to hurt you.” He kept his sword ready, but had no faith he’d need it. The boy looked far too traumatized to put up a fuss.

  Blue eyes squinted at Kaelif through mangled tresses plastering his face like a mask of hair. As they finally found their focus, the eyes burst fully open.

  The boy cried out and flailed so hard he threw himself into the water. He moved with more energy than Kaelif had expected as he floundered desperately toward the shore.

  “Wait!” Kaelif called out, “We’re not going to hurt you!”

  The boy was already sloshing up to the bank, ripping at the reeds and grass, and flashing terrified looks back at them as he staggered up onto the beach.

  “Son of a bitch! Seth, get that goddamned thing out of the way.”

  The boy’s crude dugout slid away under Seth’s guidance. Kaelif slipped into the water, which was only thigh-deep here. “Pool, Gyf, Shelig, let’s go! The rest of you stay with the boats. Pull those skiffs out of sight on the shore. A
nd grab that damned dugout.”

  Pool and Shelig were already in pursuit through the water, wading quickly for the muddy shore. Kaelif was right behind them. The boy couldn’t get far. Still, it was nearly full dark now, and Kaelif had no taste for tracking him through the night, not after the day they’d just endured.

  The boy was only a few dozen yards ahead as the lead warriors found the shore. It was obvious from the stiffness of boy’s flight that, aside from being soaked, he was obviously exhausted as well. As Kaelif ran behind him, he heard the boy whimpering.

  Pool snared the boy’s collar. The warrior had him pinned firmly to the grass when Kaelif caught up. The boy was shrieking, kicking and swinging like a demon, but Pool quickly straddled him and had his hands pinned to the grass above his head.

  Kaelif kneeled at the boy’s head. “Hold on there, son. I told you we’re not going to hurt you.”

  The boy struggled anyway, snarling and baring his teeth as he resisted. This despite the fact that he was so effectively restrained by Pool that the best he could manage was to throw his head back and forth and scream in desperation.

  “I said stop!” Kaelif said, “If we wanted you harm you’d already be dead.”

  The boy went still. He twisted his head up toward Kaelif as best he could. Wild blue eyes glared from behind the stringy hair camouflaging his face. Finally, he dropped his head back against the dirt. He still struggled to breathe, but his eyes were locked on Kaelif’s.

  “That’s better,” Kaelif said as carefully as if soothing a wounded dog, “Take it easy now. We’re not here to—”

  The boy tried to say something, but the voice was so weak and doleful, Kaelif couldn’t make sense of it.

  He knelt closer. “What was that?”

  “K-Kaelif?” he heard the boy whisper.

  Kaelif froze. He couldn’t have heard right.

  “Kaelif?” the boy said, louder now, more determinedly now, “Kaelif, is it you?”

  Kaelif studied the eyes behind the hair, eyes now welling over with tears. He reached down and carefully smoothed away the dirty strands to reveal an even dirtier face. There was something familiar in those eyes.

  “Kaelif, is that you?” the boy said again, his voice trembling, “Tell me it’s you. Please, it has to be you! It has to be!” The sorry tears flowed freely now, clearing some of the dirt around the boy’s eyes.

  Kaelif couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “Luren?” he said as he cleared more dirt from the boy’s face, “Luren pe’Gnoman? Is it… is it you?”

  Luren was crying in earnest now, releasing deep, mournful sobs whose origins were clearly born from the deepest pits of his fears. Kaelif waved Pool off, then quickly lifted the boy to his knees. As soon as he was upright, the boy threw himself into Kaelif, his arms wrapped like grappling lines around his neck.

  “Thank Calina!” Luren said as he sobbed into Kaelif’s shoulder, “I thought I was dead! I tho… thought you were going to k-kill me!”

  “No,” Kaelif said, stroking the boy’s wet hair, “We’re not... I mean, you’re safe now. You’re safe, Luren. You’re with me now. You’re perfectly safe.”

  “Who is he, Kad’r?” Seth asked over his shoulder, “He’s a Parhronii boy, isn’t he?”

  Kaelif looked up at the young Vaemyn. Pool, Gyf, Ro’bet, and Shelig stood right behind him looking completely bewildered. “Ay’a, Seth. He’s a Parhronii.”

  “But you know him,” Seth persisted, “He knows you. Who is he?”

  Seth wasn’t much older than Luren, and they looked so much alike they could’ve been brothers, save for Seth’s oteuryns. “He’s a friend,” Kaelif said, “I’ve known him since he was a baby.”

  “A friend?” Seth wouldn’t give it up. “A Parhronii friend?”

  “He’s the apprentice of the blue caeyl mage,” Kaelif said, “He’s Chance’s boy.”

  Pool opened his mouth to speak, but Kaelif waved him into silence. “I’ll explain later. We’ll camp here for the night. Seth, you get some kindling and start a small fire behind those tall boulders there. Pool, get our gear and heat something for the boy to eat. Shelig and Ro’bet, help the others secure the boats.”

  The warriors stood looking at him like they’d suddenly gone deaf.

  “Did I forget to say please? Get your asses moving!”

  As his troops beat their respective retreats, Kaelif turned back to Luren. “Don’t you worry, son,” he said, pushing the boy out to arms’ length, “We’ll get you settled in. You’ll be good as new in the morning.”

  “Thank the gods,” Luren said, “Thank them all.”

  Then the boy simply collapsed, falling forward into Kaelif. Kaelif caught him and lowered him gently to the dirt. Luren was out before he even found the ground. He was snoring softly, and looked as peaceful as if he were the king of the world.

  As he stroked the wet hair back from Luren’s face, Kaelif thought about the vision induced by the caeyls in the Drayma back at the meeting of the Faithful just days before. In that vision, he’d been riding to Prae’s keep. A second horse followed him, a horse carrying Seth and another boy, a boy with blonde hair and blue eyes, a boy who was not Vaemyn.

  He suffered a surge of nausea as the wretched truth delivered itself. They hadn’t just rescued Luren. They’d found the bait they needed to reach Prae. This was the truth, and he hated it.

  XXIV

  PURSUIT, INTERRUPTED

  CHANCE SAT BACK ON HIS HEELS AND LOOKED UP INTO THE DARKENING SKY.

  He wondered just how Calina and the lesser gods of Pentyrfal ever managed to let this world become so unbelievably fouled up. And though such contemplation had little more results than spitting at a tornado, he still silently offered those same gods the curse of a lifetime.

  The sun was quickly settling beneath the trees, leaving behind a trail of magenta gashes that bloodied the cyanotic sky. It was both magnificent and supremely depressing. In a couple hours, it’d be dark, and he’d never dreaded the end of any day more.

  They only had two vials of Mawby’s prode oil between them. He wondered if it would be enough. Who knew the mind of a prode? Believed extinct for generations, how much might they have changed with Prae’s insane resurrection of them? They were just another wrench lodged unfairly into the mill gears of their quest. The shadow of fear they’d cast over the party cost them more than just their peace of mind, it’d cost them time. They’d spent the day with their heads cranked back over their shoulders, watching for any glimpse of black in the sky.

  Just as he’d promised, Jhom had found Farnot that morning not more than a half hour after leaving the hatch. A short hike, a few whistles, and the horse was recovered, though Jhom insisted Farnot found him rather than the other way around. After that, Jhom and Mawby found the remaining horses within a couple hours.

  While the others rounded up the horses, Chance and Wenzil broke camp. Though events had turned sour for the dead runners moldering in the shadows of the war tunnel, the packs full of supplies they’d left behind were most welcomed. The sorry bodies would slowly mummify down there in those dark corridors. He’d promised Wenzil to come back with him when this was all done and give them a proper internment.

  They made the trail by noon, riding the Baeldonian warhorses southwesterly after Beam and Koonta’ar. Chance had never been overly fond of horses, and had never felt particularly comfortable riding them. He didn’t like the height, didn’t like the dependency they cultivated, and he wasn’t overly fond of the servitude the beasts were forced into. Yet, he found sitting atop these massive Baeldonian beasts to be a completely different experience. Their backs were broad enough to picnic on, and the wide, thin saddle felt comfortable and secure. A rider would practically have to make a deliberate effort to fall off one of these magnificent animals.

  Still, they’d made remarkable progress that day, much better than he’d anticipated, loping the horses when they could and walking them when the terrain grew too rocky or rutted to risk it. Mawby and
Jhom kept pace a couple miles ahead of him and Wenzil, Jhom scouting for threats and Mawby working the trail. Not that there’d been much challenge to following Beam. Mawby had been right; Beam clearly was making no effort whatsoever to cover his tracks.

  He looked off toward the quickly darkening eastern horizon. The sun was relentless out here in the southern Criohn Plains, and if it hadn’t been for the ever-present threat of prodes, he’d have most sincerely welcomed the night. There was no shade out here in this ocean of grass and no promise of any to come. The only relief from the sun’s heat was an inconsistent northerly breeze that snaked its way through the grass on the downside of the hills. And as they pushed further south and the rolling plains gradually leveled off, even the cooling comfort of the wind was dying.

  “There’s Jhom,” Wenzil said beside him, “Looks like he’s towing a couple horses behind him.”

  It took a moment for Chance to snap free of his thoughts. He followed the Baeldon’s pointing arm out into the plains. Jhom was loping down a lazy slope from the southeast. He was leading two riderless horses. They looked to be Parhronii chargers. They were so much smaller than Farnot, Jhom looked like a hunter riding in with his dogs trailing behind him.

  “No riders,” Wenzil observed, “But the horses are saddled and geared. Reckon that ain’t good news for someone.”

  “I imagine not,” Chance replied.

  “Looks like Jhom’s pushing them pretty hard down that hill. That’s risky business. Wonder what’s up?”

  Chance agreed Jhom was pushing them too hard. This area was heavily infested with tunneling prairie shimlins. It would only take one misstep to risk the lives of both rider and mount.

  Minutes later Farnot danced to a stop before them, snorting and shaking her great bronzed head. Despite their fatigue, none of the beasts wasted any time digging into the grass.

  Jhom pulled his wide-brimmed hat free and swiped his brow. He looked tired and hot, and more than a little vexed.