The Mansions of Idumea (Book 3 Forest at the Edge series) (71 page)

Karna crept in, sat on the edge of Peto’s
bed, and noticed a new ball in front of Peto’s chest.

“Your grandfather gave that to you, didn’t
he. That’s good,” he said quietly. “You’ll always have something
tangible to remember him by. Maybe you could put it on the shelf,
honor his memory by preserving it. See it every day. Remember the
kind of man he was. How he felt about you.”

Karna tried to keep his voice steady as he
watched the boy’s body wracked with silent sobs. He placed a hand
on his shoulder and felt him pull away slightly, but he kept his
hand there. Peto needed to feel some kind of touch.

Karna didn’t feel he knew him well enough to
hold him. He wondered if Zenos should have stayed and if he should
have chased down Colonel Shin instead. But Brillen could feel his
eye swelling shut and an enormous pain building around his cheek.
He probably wouldn’t see anything clearly in less than an hour and
would be waylaid by the headache soon after.

“You’re lucky to have such a heritage, Peto.
Few men can say they had a grandfather who was High General. You’ll
always carry that with you. You will always carry
him
with
you.”

He nodded to the ball, even though he knew
Peto couldn’t see his movement.

“You keep that safe, and someday you can show
your grandchildren what your grandfather meant to you. What he gave
to you.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you,” Peto whispered.

Karna took that as his signal to leave. He
reluctantly stood up. “You let me know if you need anything, your
mother, your sister. I’ll be available anytime.” He paused. “I’ve
sent someone to get your Grandmother Peto. I’ll come by later and
stay the night on the sofa,” he decided. “Just so someone’s here,
along with the guards.”

Peto nodded.

Karna shut the door quietly behind him.

The ball rolled off of Peto’s bed, but that
wasn’t what he had been holding. An envelope of sturdy parchment
was clutched to his chest, as if pushing it there tightly would
heal the gaping hole, but it seemed to fall in. The weight of the
envelope was tremendous.

Now, he alone in the entire world knew that
the envelope existed, and what the words were on the parchment
inside. He hadn’t realized how much of it his grandfather had
carried until now.

Now that he was alone.

Relf’s dream about the greatest general in
the world really
had
been for Peto Shin.

Why?

Chapter 22
~
“This really isn’t in my nature, and I’m
very
sorry about this, but--”

S
hem Zenos rode
faster than he ever remembered, barely seeing the surprised looks
of soldiers and citizens as he dodged and weaved through the dinner
time congestion of Edge. Soon Edge was a cluster of buildings
growing smaller behind him.

He tried to think what he would do, what he
would say when he finally caught up to Perrin. He had glimpsed the
look in his eyes as he sped past him out of the fort, and Neeks was
right: he was murderous. Who his target was, Shem couldn’t even
imagine. Maybe the first unlucky man that crossed his path.

Shem didn’t want it to be him, but he
would
be a better target than anyone else. At least Shem
would have a fighting chance.

He squinted into the distance to make out
Perrin’s figure in the light of the setting sun. The trees that
lined the roadside were casting too many shadows to see distinctly,
but Shem was sure it was Perrin ahead of him, passing a slow
wagon.

Mathematical formulas began limping into his
brain, weakened from disuse and neglect. He remembered when they
were first taught to him, and he came home to complain to his
father.

“
It’s stupid,”
he had said
. “Look
at this problem, Papa. Two men are riding horses. One is traveling
at one hundred paces a minute, the second is traveling at one
hundred ten paces a minute. If the two men leave from the same
destination, but five minutes apart, how long will it take the
second faster man to reach the first slower man?

“
When would I ever need to use this?” he
had grumbled.

Shem now laughed mirthlessly inside. When
would I ever need this? Right now. Perrin will probably reach the
first messenger station and change horses before I get there.

Papa had laughed at his question. He was
always laughing, when he wasn’t teary-eyed. The sweet and simple
man had only two emotions.

“
I don’t really know when you’d use this,”
he had said. “But if they’re teaching it, it must be
important.”

“
But you didn’t learn it,” Shem had
complained. “And you get by all right.”

“
I didn’t learn it because Archedes just
came up with it,” Papa laughed again. “He’s going to hold a lecture
on it and some other theories he’s developed. You’re blessed to
have such a brilliant man as your upper school teacher. When he
does his lecture on displacement, I plan to sit in the front row.
I’m always losing things.”

Shem almost smiled at that memory.

“
That’s not what displacement is,”
he
had told Papa. His father knew cattle, and that was about it.
Granted, he knew just about all there was to know about cattle,
from what part of the day they liked to eat clover to exactly how
long each cow would wait to be milked. But beyond cattle?

Young Shem would then sigh and shuffle off to
stare at the formulas. The same ones he was trying now to recreate
in his mind.

But the formulas faded away and Shem could
think of nothing but his own father.

What would he feel if the message had come
about him? Papa always greeted Shem with the standard, “
Where
have you been, and why have you left me here all alone . . .
”
whenever he came home to visit. True, it was with a smile, but
there was loneliness in his eyes as well. His father fully
supported Shem and his work, and understood why he had to be gone
so far, but still Shem ached each time he left him.

Shem had been too young to remember when his
mother passed, but he couldn’t even imagine the pain Perrin must be
feeling now. After taking out all those Guarders on the road, ones
that he had missed had killed his parents.

What if Perrin hadn’t left Idumea for Edge
when he did, Shem wondered as the line of trees ahead ended and the
road straightened out with no shadows on it. The sun hanging above
the horizon illuminated the figure of a distant horse rider, and
Shem was gaining. The rider passed another wagon.

What if he and Karna delayed sending Hili?
They’d thought about waiting. Maybe Perrin could have still been at
his parents when the Guarders came. Maybe he could have stopped it
. . .

Shem shook his head and readjusted his stance
on the now-foaming horse.

No use thinking like that. Whatever the
Creator wills, will happen. It must have been their time to go.
Maybe it had been General Shin’s time to go three weeks ago, but
the Creator gave him time to say goodbye, and to be with his wife
when it happened. Perhaps Relf had unfinished business he was
allowed to attend to. Who else could have released the stores and
saved Edge?

Perrin had told him it was the best visit
he’d ever had with his parents. Perhaps it was a tender mercy to
let Relf and Joriana see their son and his family, and then watch
them leave in such a good way. If the family had been there when
the Guarders came, today may have been even more tragic—

No, Shem reminded himself as he closed in on
Perrin. There’s no tragedy in death. Death isn’t the end; it’s only
a change. The only tragedy is in not living the Plan, in failing
the Test.

The Shins’ final act was one of pure
generosity, without a care for what happened to them. What better
way to finish the Test?

I have to tell him that, Shem thought as he
saw the red flag in the distance signaling the messenger station. I
have to remind him. He already knows; his heart just can’t connect
with his mind right now.

The sun was setting and the last of the light
hit the messenger station that sat a little off the road. Shem
picked out some movement at the small distant building and hoped
they would delay Perrin. As he got closer he saw more urgent action
and realized someone was rushing a horse out of the stable.

“No!” Shem groaned. He was just a hundred
paces away when he recognized the distinctly large figure of Perrin
mount the horse and take off again.

“PERRIN!” Shem cried.

He thought he saw his friend look back, then
continue at a fast pace.

Shem was at the messenger station now and
slid off his tired horse. He grabbed the two packs and rushed into
the office.

“I need a horse, now! I need to catch up to
the colonel!”

The small, older man standing behind the
counter greeted Shem with a mixture of fury and terror. “And you’re
far too heavy as well! Weight limit is 120 pounds. You must be over
200! That wild colonel is even bigger and will kill that horse.
No!”

Shem stepped up quickly and leaned over the
counter. “I need to stop that
wild colonel
, and I need a
horse,
now
.” It was a fairly good attempt at intimidation,
which was not one of Shem’s strengths, but far better than he’d
ever done before.

The older man shifted his stance before
saying, “No. Not for anyone but the Administrators’
messengers.”

“What if I told you that wild colonel is most
likely
after
the Administrators? If he reaches them, it’ll
be your fault. Give me a horse!”

The supervisor didn’t get his position by
being pushed around by large soldiers. “I have my orders.” It was
hard to argue with that.

Shem took a deep breath, knowing he was
losing valuable time. “How’d the colonel get a horse?”

Without meaning to, the man’s eyes darted to
the side. That’s when Shem saw the two men lying on the floor. One
kept his head back and held his nose which was bleeding profusely,
and the other was unconscious. Definitely Perrin’s handiwork.

A third man rushed in, greeted Shem with a
yelp of terror, and crouched by the bleeding man to hand him a wet
cloth.

Desperate, Shem turned again to the
supervisor.

“No.”

Realizing that some situations can’t be
worked out any other way, Shem said, “This really isn’t in my
nature, and I’m
very
sorry about this, but—”

The force of Shem’s fist hitting the small
man sent him backward into a wall. Shem didn’t wait to see him fall
but sprinted toward the stable.

The man with the wet cloth—the only one who
was still healthy and capable, and wanted to stay that way—cried
out, “Give him a horse!”

Another messenger ran out from the stable
with a horse, making as if he was about to mount it, probably to
send a warning or request assistance, but Shem snatched the reins,
nodded a polite thanks, and took off on the animal.

Perrin was now only a blob in the darkening
distance.

If Shem were a swearing man, he would have
cursed. Instead he pressed his lips together and leaned over the
horse in a vain attempt to make his load lighter. There’d likely be
no one following them. The messenger services typically had only
two horses saddled at a time, one to go in either direction. It
would take them time to get a third horse ready to send in pursuit
as a warning. By then, somewhere Shem should have caught up to
Perrin.

But that didn’t happen at the next station.
He was even closer this time as Perrin abandoned his horse for a
new one, and he was sure the colonel saw him in pursuit. But when
Shem barged through the messenger station, the supervisor and
riders were panicked. Another man was prone on the ground,
motionless.

“Sir, we’ve been informed that you’re to
remain here,” the supervisor attempted in a shaky voice. “You have
a serious illness and a representative from the fort will be here
shortly to see to—”

Shem had no time for this. He went directly
to the stables and took the next saddled horse, ignoring the cries
of protest.

Clever warning, Perrin
, Shem thought.
But worrisome. You’re thinking. You’re planning. You’re trying to
throw others off. But you’ve lost all sense of rationality. What
else are you planning, my brother?

Shem was closing in on Perrin about a mile
before the third messenger station. He was nearly on top of him,
yelling his name, when Shem’s horse began to go lame. Perrin was
well on his way with a new horse leaving Shem to face another crew
of shocked, wounded, and unconscious messengers. But he wasn’t
going to bother with them. He ran straight for the stables.

“Horse! NOW!”

A farrier shook his head vigorously. “Don’t
have one saddled.”

Shem spun around, found a horse that looked
rested enough, and grabbed its reins. Riding bareback was his only
choice. Good thing he did that a lot on his father’s ranch when he
was growing up.

Once again Shem was in pursuit, but this time
he was sure he’d catch up to Perrin. A few miles along the
darkening road Shem saw him clearly, and his horse was struggling.
It was smaller than the others had been and clearly unsuitable for
Perrin’s weight.

They were nearing the station at Midplain
when Shem finally pulled up even with Perrin, who looked bitterly
askance at him.

“I’m going with you!” Shem shouted at him.
“Let me help!”

Perrin tried to spur his horse on faster, but
it was flagging. The station came into view and Perrin rode
straight for the stables. His horse stumbled outside the open
doors, but Perrin slid off the lamed animal and plowed into the
stables, with Shem close behind.

“Stop!” Shem shouted at the colonel, but it
was Shem who stopped suddenly, just inside the barn, when he found
himself facing Perrin.