The Burden of Memory

by Welcome Cole

  A few hundred yards ahead, he saw the path jag another hard right around the edge of the mountain. He was beginning to wonder whether this path made it down to the forest proper at all. Maybe it was just going to peter out and he’d end up at a dead end of a crevice so narrow he wouldn’t even be able to turn his horse around on it. Maybe this was just another of the half-breed’s pathetic attempts at humor. If so, he swore he’d find his way back to that miserable cave and share his displeasure with the Father.

  He decided to lead his mount the rest of the way down the mountain rather than ride, the saddle seeming far too dangerous a roost so close to the edge. The path was now barely wide enough to accommodate the horse without a mount, and the edge dropped a most considerable distance to the forest below.

  Eventually the path did land him on the forest floor. The change in the terrain was dramatic down here. While the few trees he’d passed on his descent had been spindly specimens of ancient evergreens with twisted, nearly deformed branches and roots clinging to life in the barest semblance of cracks, the trees here at the base of the forest were robust giants as thick as hair on a boar’s back.

  A mile into the cool shade of the trees, he tethered his horse. He walked a few dozen paces away from the animal’s taer-cael, then slipped to the ground. He lowered his face to the earth and pushed the smell of humus from his mind as he concentrated on listening.

  After a few minutes he sat back on his heels. He couldn’t detect a single sound. It didn’t make sense. The forest, for all appearances, appeared devoid of animated life. He rubbed at his head and wondered if the rogue’s entire army story was just another ruse. A marching army should make more noise than a thunderstorm. The taer-cael of so many people and animals moving in a single congregation should be at least mildly palpable from miles out, even through the thick carpet of the forest floor.

  He scanned the shade beneath the towering woods ahead. The river couldn’t be more than five or six miles ahead through those trees. Not that he had any real expectations of reaching it. If the half-breed’s assumptions were true, he’d be cut off long before finding the waterway. Any army worth its salt would have teams of reconnaissance patrols out scouring the woods ahead of them. And the Farks were far from idiots.

  Not that stealth was a skill he needed for this particular task. His mission was to make contact with the Farks, to serve himself up to them, not avoid them. Still, he had to get close enough to their base camp without getting killed by some nervous patrol first. Assuming the Farks did somehow manage to raise an army, they surely wouldn’t be trained recruits. If anything, they’d be farmers, tinkers, confidence men, and hired assassins who’d have all the discipline of a street mob. They’d be likely to shoot at anything rattling a shrub. Assuming they didn’t just wet themselves and run for the hills at the first sight of a Vaemyn.

  “You’ll do yourself a favor by remaining exactly as you are!”

  Mawby froze. The voice was directly behind him. It was female. The words were Vaemysh.

  He started to push himself up from the ground, but an arrow sliced into the earth just inches from his hand. He dropped back to his knees and planted his fingers in the dirt.

  “Didn’t I just tell you to stay put? What are you, stupid or deaf?”

  “Who are you?” he barked over his shoulder, speaking in Vaemysh just as his assailer had done.

  “You’re in a piss-poor position to be asking questions, jh’ven?”

  Though a Vaemyd, the voice was huskier and more grating than most. And while convincingly authoritative, he knew her words weren’t those of a warrior. They were too informal, too familiar. She had to be a renegade, one of Fark’s crew.

  He sensed the taer-cael of someone approaching from behind. The feet stopped immediately behind him. His stomach sank as he heard a sword slip free from its scabbard. He again thought of the Drayma. He wouldn’t be dying here today, but he could still do a lot of bleeding.

  “Stand up.” It was a male voice this time, still Vaemysh.

  Mawby did as he was ordered, his arms held submissively out at his side. “I’m turning around,” he said over his shoulder, “I’m unarmed.”

  “Ay’a, you’ll turn around,” the Vaemyn said, laughing, “And you’ll do it like a little dancer, all pretty and light of foot. You so much as blink out of rhythm and I’ll make a purse from your ass.”

  “Dare to dream with more ambition, Sayter,” the female said, laughing, “His ass is big enough for saddlebags.”

  Mawby turned very slowly, arms still held straight out. There were five of them behind him, four Vaemysh renegades and a Parhronii, all weather beaten and malicious looking, all dressed in rough buckskins. After a beat, a sixth one materialized practically from the shadows themselves. He was a dark man with exotic green eyes, dressed in rough leather and knives. A Watcher.

  Oddly enough, none of his interceptors had their arms drawn. They looked like a party of mismatched rangers on their way to festival.

  The Vaemyd pushed her way past the one called Sayter, stopping close enough to Mawby to smell her spicy breath. “What’s your name, boy?” she growled in that smoky voice.

  She was taller than the rest, though still a half-head shorter than him. She wore her hair short and crisp just as Maeryc had, though she’d gummed hers back with some kind of green paste. Less plain than the others, she wore nondescript green leathers shelled in thin squares of metal plates, knee-high black leather boots, and a scowl that looked permanently carved into her face. She had bare arms, knotty with lean muscle and covered in arcane tattoos. Her right bicep was inked with a black cat arched over a very unhappy looking skull. It was the Farks’ sign. His first assessment had been right; these were no warriors, not in any legal sense.

  “I asked you a question,” she said coolly, “Asking twice is a rare event for me. Asking three times would be a record. What’s your name?”

  He recognized her type well, a renegade with an attitude. With her kind you were either on the offense or the defense, there was no neutral territory.

  “You’re some of Farks’ crew,” he said, not wanting to seem too willing to comply. He let his arms drift down to his sides.

  “A regular astronomer, eh?” she said, grinning, “Or maybe you’re just a smart ass?”

  “Reckon I have moments of both.” He noted that, despite her grin, the scowl gripping her eyes didn’t waver a bit.

  Her countenance grew starkly colder, which Mawby wouldn’t have thought possible if he hadn’t actually seen it. She landed him three vicious slaps before he even saw her move. “Don’t toy with me, boy. I’m not one you want to piss off.”

  Mawby spit blood into the dirt. The memory of Koonta doing the same to the rogue back in the swamps flashed inexplicably through his head. He clearly understood this type. She wouldn’t toy with him long. Soon enough, she was going to come to the brutal point.

  “Name’s Mawby,” he said, looking hard into her eyes.

  “Mawby?” she grumbled as if chewing on it, “Well, isn’t that the cutest little name I’ve ever heard. Especially for someone your size. Were you named after a dog?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “What’s your full name, then?”

  “Maubius Yendt,” he said back, trying to match her glare, which was nothing like easy. Her sharp, gray eyes felt like a knife cutting right through to the back of his skull.

  “I thought I was tall. What are you, half—”

  “No! I’m not half-bloody-Baeldon.”

  She half-smiled at that. For just an instant, it actually looked genuine. “You’ve heard that one before?”

  “Once or twice.”

  She studied him for a moment. He wasn’t sure if he’d really pissed her off now or if that look of deep and soulful irritation was just her normal expression. “Do you have problems with your horns?” she said abruptly.

  “What?”

  “Am I speaking a foreign language?”

  “No. I
understand Vaemysh well enough.”

  “Do you have trouble with your oteuryns?”

  He felt himself sink. He knew exactly where she was going with this; he’d been snuck up upon even while on the ground and listening for them. But looking at the crew behind her, he was pretty sure this mob could sneak up on the Gods of Pentyrfal without them sensing it. They were smugglers, and he was confident they’d had a lot of practice with stealth. More than that, they had a Watcher with them. He’d bet his pipe that dark-skinned man had used his mindblades to confuse him.

  “You caught me unawares,” he said to her, “You knew I was coming and laid up in ambush, I reckon.” He looked over at the Watcher. “I expect you had something of an advantage, too.”

  “You expect so?” She looked back at her crew. “He says he expects we had an advantage.”

  The other members laughed, though there wasn’t much enthusiasm in it. Their uniforms, or whatever this rogue-in-the-woods look was, were spattered with blood and grime. They’d clearly shared a quarrel with someone recently, and he suspected that someone was a Vaemysh patrol caught just as unaware as he’d been. Their countenance suggested they’d just as soon string him up and be on their merry ways as spend another second chattering.

  The Vaemyd cast him another quick study, then walked around him as casually as if examining a horse for purchase. When she came full circle she said, “Are you a spy, Maubius Yendt?”

  He wouldn’t have been any more surprised if she’d asked him if he was the Lord Overseer of the Mendophs. “A spy?” he repeated, grinning.

  “A goddamned spy! Are you having trouble understanding me again? Maybe I need to use smaller words?”

  “I understand you fine. I’m no spy.”

  “Are you a hack?”

  “What?”

  “Again with your hearing? Bad taer-cael, bad hearing.” She grabbed him in the crotch. He doubled forward into her arm. “What else doesn’t work? Maybe we can cut off the useless parts for you? Make your travel a little lighter.”

  “Do I look like a hack?” he grunted as he resisted her.

  She let him go hard enough to send him staggering back a pace, though she stayed right with him. She grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer as easily as if their sizes were reversed. Cocking her head to the side she examined his oteuryns. “You’re not wearing the sign.”

  “You’re damned right, I’m not. I’ve no use for Prae or his toys. I hope they all rot in the hells.”

  “Then just what are you doing way out here in the middle of nowhere all by yourself?”

  Mawby shrugged. “Taking a stroll, I reckon.”

  She threw another volley of slaps on him. But this time there was real anger in the blows. His lip was split wide. He was probably lucky he hadn’t lost a tooth.

  As he smeared the blood away, he looked at her and said very carefully, “Do that again, and I swear to the gods I’ll kill you.”

  “I’ll ask you one last time. After that, we divvy up your skin between us. What exactly are you doing out here in the middle of Na te’Yed, Maubius Yendt? And I can’t recommend highly enough that your response be free of wit.”

  He thought it odd that she didn’t reacted to his threat, though he noticed she was now fingering the hilt of the short, slender sword tucked through her belt without burden of a scabbard. On the other hip, stowed in similar fashion, was a long, lethal looking sword with a dramatically curved blade. It looked the perfect tool for a beheading.

  “I’m looking for someone,” he said.

  “Really? And just who the hell would you be looking for out here in the middle of these lonely woods?”

  Though he knew these were the very people who could lead him where he needed to go, he couldn’t bear to let her think she’d intimidated him enough to throw him into gab. Instead, he grinned and said, “Now, how exactly do you suppose that’s any of your business?”

  This time he expected her assault. She swung at him, but he used it to throw her off balance. They fell to the ground in a volley of fists. But despite outweighing her by an easy forty stone, he quickly found himself in the unsavory and somewhat humiliating position of defeat. She straddled his chest with her knife against his throat.

  “That was not smart, Mawby,” she whispered low into his face, “Didn’t your mother warn you against picking on folks smaller than yourself?”

  “Reckon I’m more than half smart ass after all,” he said, grinning.

  She pressed the blade tighter against his neck. He was pretty sure it was going to leave a mark.

  “I’ll give you ten heartbeats to tell me who you’re looking for,” she hissed at him, “Don’t tell me before the count, they’ll be your last.”

  “I was sent to find Captain Lucifeus Fark.”

  The pressure of the knife blade eased just a bit. Even the scowl carved into her face faded some. “Captain Fark? Who sent you?”

  “No one you’d know.”

  “Try me.” The blade tightened again.

  “I’m telling you, you don’t know him!”

  “I think you’re a liar. Maybe I should just kill you right now.”

  “Do it. But I suspect it won’t settle well with your master.”

  Her face blossomed at that. “My master? You really do want to die.”

  “So it would appear.”

  “The dandy’s just going to hang you on the spot anyway.”

  “I seriously doubt that. He’s expecting me.”

  XXXII

  THE PLEASURE OF MEMORY

  KOONTA KNELT IN THE COOL DIRT JUST OUTSIDE THE CAVE ENTRANCE IN WHAT SHE’D COME TO THINK OF AS THE COURTYARD.

  She’d listened to Mawby’s taer-cael until it’d disappeared into the ethers. And even after his image faded, she’d stayed in that position anyway, alternately listening and dozing.

  “You can’t hear him anymore.”

  She twisted around to look up at Beam, shading her eyes against the brilliant sky. He’d finally bathed and changed. He was clean-shaven now and wearing a tunic of the same sky blue as hers. Over his shirt was a darker blue tabard with yellow borders hanging to mid-thigh. It had the image of a sensuously lidded eye embroidered in gold thread on the chest. He looked like one of the cleric knights of legend.

  “You clean up well enough,” she said.

  “Yeah, I’m a regular dream.”

  She couldn’t suppress her grin. “So, you do have some degree of modesty after all, eh?”

  “Nah,” he said as he dropped to his knees beside her, “I’m too damned arrogant for modesty.”

  She snuffed back a laugh, but said nothing.

  “You look pretty good today. Nearly as healthy as you did back in the swamp when you beat the shit out of me. You remember that, don’t you?”

  Koonta surprised herself by laughing at that. The sound of her own amusement felt strangely foreign as it bubbled free, like it came from someone else’s mouth. She felt a moment’s embarrassment for it.

  “He’ll be fine,” Beam said, “Trust me.”

  “I do.” Her eyes dropped to the dirt between them.

  He took her chin and raised her face to his. “You’re changing. You know that, right?”

  His touch surprised her. It was filled with solace. The warmth of it radiated into her cheek like the heat of a morning fire. It took all her strength to pull her face away, but she did pull her face away. She couldn’t accept his warmth. Not now. Not yet. She looked over at the beggarberry shrubs lining the courtyard in search of a distraction.

  “It worries you,” he said, “The changes, I mean.”

  “I reckon. Some.”

  “You should embrace it. Like a moth emerging from a cocoon.”

  It was the same metaphor she’d used to explain him to Mawby. She looked up at him. His eyes seemed bluer out here in the sunlight. They held a unique glimmer, as if the world’s light shined out from them. More than that, his oteuryns sparkled like sunlit icicles. They were nearly unbearable.
>
  “You’re a fine one to pass advice,” she said, looking off, again “You’re still fighting your own changes.”

  “Can’t find the ammunition to argue that statement.”

  “Do I detect a ‘but’ coming?”

  “We’re different, you and me. There’s no way to compare us, no way to compare our… changes.”

  “Different? Sadly for me, I’m beginning to doubt that.”

  “Doubt as you will, but it’s true. You’re as pure as a spring breeze. I’m more like the sun and clouds.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  He laughed. “It means that after all these years walking across this miserable rock, I appear to have a good side after all.”

  “But the clouds block it. That’s your excuse, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, I expect I see the other side of that. I suspect the sun’s your true nature. Clouds eventually pass away, sometimes disappearing for days at a time. But the sun doesn’t. It comes back every day. It might hide behind the clouds, but it’s there all the same.”

  His eyes dropped to the space separating them. He picked at a tiny stone lying in the gray dirt, rolling it back and forth with a fingertip. Time seemed to stop between them. She wasn’t sure how long it was before he picked up the stone and flicked it off into the hedge.

  “Why me?” she asked.

  He looked at her for a very long time. “What do you mean?”

  “You know exactly what I mean. I can feel you in my head. You damn near live there these days.”

  She figured he should’ve blushed at that. He didn’t even flinch.

  “You think I was planted here in this role because Prave played it that way,” he said, “Isn’t that right? You think my destiny has been planned for centuries before I was even a twinkle in my dear dead father’s eye.”

  “Sounds to me like that’s what you think. You shouldn’t be sticking your words in another’s mouth.”

  His eyes followed the line of hair spilling down over her shoulders. After a bit, he looked her straight in the eye and said, “You’re a complete mystery to me.”