From Across the Clouded Range (49 page)

“
If only I could convince
the counselors to pray as you do,” a voice broke into Jaret’s dark
contemplations. An old man sat next to him on the bench at his back
and placed a hand on his shoulder. “If the Order did not need you
as a soldier, I would find you a top place in the Hall of
Understanding. I think a life of study and prayer would suit you.”
The old man took a deep breath. “Sit with me a minute. I have not
seen you in weeks. Tell me of your trip.”

Jaret looked back over his shoulder
into the eyes of Xi Valati Maciam. He was an old man, with short
white hair framing the bald pate of his head. His nose was long,
cheeks high and sunken. Big ears stood out from his narrow head and
great shaggy brows shielded his kind, brown eyes. He wore a brown
robe of finely woven wool. It was embroidered with patterns that
symbolized order at the cuffs, neck, and hem but was otherwise
plain. The wooden pendant – a magnificently carved and polished
representation of the rising sun – that marked his position
glistened like gold in the light of the lamps that illuminated the
statue before them.

“
Your Grace,” Jaret bowed,
placing his head almost in the Xi Valati’s lap. “I was secretly
hoping that I might see you today.”

“
Enough with the
prostration.” The Xi Valati lifted Jaret’s shoulders and guided him
to the bench next to him. He found Jaret’s hand and held it in his
large, thin fingers. “One could argue that it is I that should be
kneeling to you.” The old man laughed at Jaret’s look of shock and
disgust. “You take all this far too seriously, Jaret. The best part
of the Reinterpretation is that it allowed us to find the humor in
the Order. I am convinced that Hileil thought himself a comedian.
His jokes are woven into every crease of the Order.”

“
As you say, your Grace.”
Jaret was never sure what to do with the Xi Valati’s informality.
Though the old man had become more of a father than Jaret had ever
known, he would never be able to address the Order’s most senior
interpreter with anything other than the utmost
reverence.

The Xi Valati sighed long and deep. He
gestured to the acolytes that accompanied him, and they took
several steps back, giving them some privacy. “I always find it
interesting how some men stand on their power like a mountain from
which they can lord over their subjects while others carry that
mountain on their shoulders to keep it from crushing the people
below. In the Empire, we have both such men simultaneously. What do
you think would happen if you simply set your burden
down?”

Jaret did not answer immediately. He
had never thought of it that way, but lately, he certainly felt
like there was a mountain on his shoulders. “The mountain might sag
a bit lower, but others would certainly take up the burden and may
even lift it higher.”

“
They would collapse,” the
Xi Valati exclaimed, slapping his hands together. “The whole thing
would come crashing down.”

Jaret grunted. The sentiment did not
encourage him in the slightest. If anything he felt his burden grow
heavier.

“
So what is troubling you
today? And don’t give me any of your stoic, ‘nothing important
enough to worry the Order’ nonsense. The only men who pray that
hard are those with no other hope. Was your tour that
bad?”

Worse
, Jaret thought. It had been a disaster. The people were
starving, the nobles were indifferent, the army was a shambles, the
crops were withered, the rivers were dry, and the anger was
building. He expected any day to learn that the scattered uprising
that plagued the countryside had consolidated into full-scale
revolt, that nobles were being hung, and a rebel army was marching
on Sal Danar. The Empire was teetering on the edge of collapse, and
he couldn’t think of a single thing to do about it . . . save
pray.
Hopeless indeed!

And for some reason, he told it all
the Xi Valati. Over the course of thirty precious minutes, he
blurted out his problems like a child, like some half-brained girl.
He described the skeletons working the dusty fields, the hate in
their eyes as their children starved. He raged against the bloated
nobles feasting in their silks and jewels, unwilling even to throw
the scraps to the people they buried with their taxes. He whined
about the state of his army, half-starved, poorly equipped,
ill-trained, lacking the discipline of a band of outlaws – and
likely to become outlaws soon enough. The Xi Valati listened to him
blubber, nodded quietly, held his hand, patted his back, and made
encouraging sounds.

When he finally ran out of complaints
to heap upon the Order’s foremost representative, he felt wrung
out, like he had poured every bit of himself out onto the old man’s
lap. “Do you feel better?” the Xi Valati asked.

Jaret was surprised by the
question. He had done everything but cry like a baby. He had
expected a lecture about keeping his resolve, about not letting his
troubles overcome him, about bucking up and acting like a man. But
the Xi Valati had never given him that lecture before; he was not
sure why he expected it now.
Because that
is what I would tell myself.
Jaret
straightened, feeling suddenly ashamed for having laid his problems
at the feet of another man. He wanted to be scolded for his
weakness, wanted to be told to stop crying, but Xi Valati Maciam
would not let him off that easy. If he had come with miseries, he
wanted to help him with miseries.

“
It is of no concern,”
Jaret said, turning away. “The babbling of a child who realizes
that mama can’t actually keep the monsters away. Nothing
more.”

“
Jaret, look at me,” the
Xi Valati commanded, his tone snapping as Jaret had never heard.
His head spun as if out of his control, and his eyes were held by
the Xi Valati’s suddenly fiery stare. “You see. You have seen all
our troubles, our miseries, all the ways we have failed. And I
would never dismiss those, but it is all part of the Order, all
necessary for what will come. We are entering a time of turmoil. A
storm is coming that will make these troubles seem as petty as your
child’s fears.”

The Xi Valati paused, held Jaret with
his eyes, then moved his hands to his arms. “You must weather that
storm. It will tear you apart, push you under the waves until you
are certain you have drown, punish you as you have never been
punished, but you must persevere. You are a part of the Order’s
great plan, a vital strand in the great tapestry, and you cannot
allow the storm to disrupt that.

“
Do you understand?” The
old man looked long and deep into his eyes, strength turning slowly
to desperation. “Things are not always as they seem. The Order is
stronger than you know. The events of our lives are not as random
as they seem, but we still must play our parts.
You
must play
your
part.” The Xi Valati loosened
his hands slowly from where they were pressed into Jaret’s flesh.
His face relaxed, head sagged, shoulders drooped. “That is as much
as I can say, and it is already too much.” He looked up and smiled.
“Thank you for coming here today. It has been my great pleasure to
know you, Jaret Rammeriz. May the Order guide and protect
you.”

And with that, the Xi Valati stood. He
turned and walked away without another word, without a look back,
without any acknowledgment of the man he had left agog on the bench
behind. His acolytes fell in behind him and he simply walked from
their secluded nave and disappeared into one of the many doors that
led from the main hall, leaving Jaret to ponder what any of it had
meant.

Chapter 23

“
. . . . When our men are
gathered in Olieati, we strike Valden. We will crush the rebellious
dogs, divide their forces, and march unhindered on Liandrin. Of
course it is not that simple. . . .”

Jaret stopped listening to the small
man at the other side of the long table. Nabim an’ Pmalatir,
Commander of the Western Peace, had been speaking for what seemed
like hours, droning through every detail of his elaborate plan to
invade Liandria. The idea was utter hogwash, and Jaret listened to
just enough of it to be certain that he could properly denounce it
when the commander’s time was through.

A glance at the hourglass in the
center of the table showed that it would still be some time before
that fortuitous event occurred, so Jaret turned to the agenda in
front of him. He already knew what he would find there, but like a
jilted lover, he kept returning in hopes that the unyielding list
had finally changed its mind. And like that lover, he kept finding
the same heartbreak. They were over halfway through the briefing,
but he had grouped the imperial appointees at the end, and there
was still time allotted for four of them after Commander Nabim. The
thought made him groan in dismay.

The half-hour allotted to each
commander was meant for updates on the status of their forces.
Jaret wanted to know about the equipment, training, and morale of
the various components of his army, but Commander Nabim had started
what was sure to be an agonizing trend away from such useful
information by choosing instead to present a plan that would surely
result in all of their deaths. Undoubtedly, Nabim considered it the
best way to conceal the fact that he had stolen his men’s
equipment, failed to train them, and, as a result, lowered their
morale considerably. Jaret sighed and reminded himself that it did
not matter. He already knew enough about Commander Nabim’s men from
the legionnaires posted throughout his forces. The frustrating
thing was that he could do so little about it.

Nabim an’ Pmalatir had been the
Commander of the Western Peace for over two years now. Over that
time, he never ceased to amaze with the extent of his corruption
and incompetence, but he had been appointed by the Emperor, so
Jaret could do nothing about it. The regional command duties were
not supposed to be open for imperial appointment – in other words,
the Emperor was not supposed to know that they existed – but Nabim
had told his cousin, the Emperor, that there had been an uprising
in the West. It had created a storm that had nearly cost the
supposed overseer of the region – a man who didn’t actually exist –
his head. In the end, Nabim was appointed to command the Imperial
Armies of the West, and Jaret had been forced to deal with him ever
since. He assigned legionnaires to subordinate positions and
funneled most of the money and supplies through them while giving
Commander Nabim pointless administrative jobs to keep him
busy.

The thought made Jaret’s
temperature rise.
How could a nation
function like this?
Realizing that he was
about to explode, Jaret detached himself further from Commander
Nabim’s elaboration and glanced out the high windows along the far
wall of the room. A few high clouds still drifted through the
purest blue of the summer sky carried by a slight breeze that
shifted the air just enough to keep the furnace-like heat from
becoming overpowering. The steady hum of carts on cobblestones,
hawkers selling their wares, and jumbled conversations accompanied
the breeze to remind him that he was surrounded by one of the
largest cities in the world. He could jump out the window right now
and, following an eighty foot fall, land in the sprawling Eastern
Market. If not for the fall, the idea would be tempting.

The Imperial War Room was on the top
floor of the Great Chamber, the huge administrative building that
completely surrounded the Palace of the Dawn in the eastern most
part of Sal Danar. The Great Chamber was the largest single
building in the known world, standing like a massive wall around
the palace, and this room was one of its largest. It had a high
ceiling and tall glass windows that looked out over the city all
the way past the Temple of Order and Hall of Understanding to the
main wall in the distance. Around the room was sparse utilitarian
furniture: a massive oak table dominated the center of the room,
small desks for aides lined the walls, and a huge cabinet full of
maps was at the back. The walls were decorated with still more maps
that depicted the remainder of the once mighty San Chier Empire and
its sparse military forces, but the map in front of Jaret was by
far the most impressive. The entire surface of the ancient table at
which he sat was delicately carved to show the precise topography
of the continent and inlaid to depict even the smallest roads and
streams. It was the most extraordinary map in the world and one of
Jaret’s favorite tools.

Admiring that map, Jaret studied the
area where the Olieati and Asmae Rivers met at Olieati. The track
from there to Valden was rich farmland. Jaret knew from experience
that it was a latticework of fences and fields with small, winding
roads that were ill-suited for the movement of anything more than
oxcarts. The only reasonable way to move an army from Olieati to
Valden, as Commander Nabim was suggesting, was to go up the Asmae
River, but it was overshadowed by a series of gorges that were
ideal for ambushes.

Jaret shifted his view north. If he
were going to attack Liandria, that is where he would start. He
would mass his troops in the forests south of Souris where he might
be able to maintain some semblance of surprise. From there, he
would race down the old imperial highway into Liandria. He might
even manage to capture Valden, though he would never hold it for
more than a fortnight and would certainly not capture anything else
before the much larger and better equipped Liandrin army sent him
running. That, of course, was why he had no intention of invading
Liandria. Still, he wished that if Commander Nabim was going to
suggest such idiocy that it at least be well-constructed
idiocy.