The Silent Tempest (Book 2) (19 page)

The warden blinked again, and a tear made
its way down one cheek. She turned her back on them, hiding her face, and her
voice was thick when she spoke again, “You will play tonight? I have not heard
your music in years.” It was as much a demand as a request.

He had left his cittern in his bedroom
when he left to capture his children, and he hadn’t thought of it since
returning. It had been a long time since he had played for anyone other than
Lyralliantha. He had become rather reclusive over the past decade.

“I will play for you,” he told her, “and
for Garlin.”

Layla nodded.

***

The rest of the afternoon went smoothly.
None of the children felt like arguing after what had happened to Ian. He
split them up into several groups. The mundanes he split into two details, one
charged with preparing something edible for everyone that evening, and the
other with cleaning the stone dust and other detritus from the interior of his
house to make it suitable for them to sleep in that night.

Once he had them working, he spent the
rest of his time with the ones who had already awakened their mage abilities,
teaching them the rudiments of shielding and a few practical tricks, such as
how to keep themselves warm. Once he had accomplished that, he took them
outside and marked the outlines for a new building a short distance from his
house.

“What will that be?” asked Jack, noting
the size of the rectangle he had marked.

“A place for you and your brothers and
sisters to live,” answered Tyrion.

Ryan pointed at the lines he had marked on
the ground, “Are those supposed to be the interior walls?”

Tyrion nodded.

“What’s this large area here then?” asked
the boy.

“That’s a common room.”

“And that?” said Ryan, pointing to a
square he had marked with cross marks.

“That will lead to the storage cellar.”

“Where are the bedrooms?” observed Ryan,
squinting as he thought about the layout.

Ordinarily such questions might have
annoyed him, but he could tell the boy was thinking, and he appreciated that.
“They’ll be on the two floors above.”

“Where’s all the wood going to come from?”
asked Ryan, looking askance at the small pile of lumber that Tyrion had set
aside near his mostly completed home.

“The extra will come from the oaks over
that way,” said Tyrion, pointing toward the hills, away from the Illeniel
Grove, “but the building will be primarily stone, so you won’t need as much as
you’re thinking. The wood will be for bracing and framing.”

“Stone?” asked Sarah suddenly. “How are
we supposed to build out of stone?”

Tyrion tapped his temple, “With this.
Your aythar will be your tools, it will be your carts, it will cut stone, and
it will carry materials. Everything will be done with it.”

“But I don’t know anything about
building,” she protested.

“You’ll learn,” he replied. “The task
will help you hone your concentration and strengthen your will.”

Ryan spoke again, “If you’re going to
build this out of stone, it won’t work. That space is too large, the weight of
the upper floors will cause it to collapse without more interior support.”

Tyrion focused on him now, “Do you know
something about building, boy?”

Ryan looked uncomfortable now that the
attention was firmly on him, but he held his ground. “A little, I was
apprenticed to a carpenter, but I got to see the masons working too.”

“Think you can come up with a better
design?” challenged Tyrion.

“W—well, maybe just some suggestions…”

“You’re in charge of the building and its
design, then,” he ordered the boy, then he pointed at Gabriel, “You’ll be in
command of everyone in general, but I’ll expect you to make sure everyone
cooperates with Ryan’s plan.”

Gabriel nodded calmly, but Ryan’s face was
a picture of shock, “Wait, I don’t know that much. What if it falls in? I’m
just an apprentice I don’t kn…”

“You know more than I do about
construction,” admitted Tyrion. “If it falls down, you’ll just have to rebuild
it. The sooner you get it right, the sooner all of you have private rooms to
sleep in.”

“What about the stone?” asked Brigid,
speaking for the first time in hours.

Tyrion smiled, “It’s in a pit, about a
quarter mile in that direction.” He gestured toward the foothills.

She frowned, “There’s no way we can get
enough here to build this gigantic house.”

“See that house over there?” said Tyrion,
waiting for their eyes to focus on what he had just recently named ‘Albamarl’.
“I built that with nothing but this.” He tapped his forehead. “I knew nothing
about stonework, and very little about carpentry. I had no tools and no
assistance. Each of you is strong, and once you’ve matured and exercised your
abilities, you will probably be as strong as I am, or close to it. Some of you
might become even stronger. You’ll build it.”

The meal that evening was—interesting.
The different assignments had given the teens something to occupy themselves,
and they had begun to subtly compete. One of the girls, Emma Phillips, had
been adamantly confident in her cooking skills and had consequently taken
charge of the cooking detail.

What they had produced was edible, but it
left a lot to be desired. There were beans, but they had been cooked into a
flavorless paste. Roasted turnips were there for variety, but they were
scorched black in places and yet still raw in the middle. The oatcakes were
passable, but somehow they had been salted until they were more of a savory
item than sweet.

The complaints by the others were loud and
lengthy, particularly by the others who had been overruled by Emma’s decisions
while on the cooking detail. All fingers were pointing in her direction, and
she seemed to be on the verge of tears now, tears or a tantrum. It was hard to
tell.

They sat in the open yard in front of the
house, where two of them had built a large fire, and a couple of others had
brought heavy logs to use as benches. It was chillier outside, but the fire
made it tolerable even for those without magic.

They ate their food there, or as David put
it, they “…choked down the remains of what was once known as food.” Laughter
was the only spice that made the food taste better, although it drove Emma to
eat inside the house rather than listen to their jibes.

Tyrion had taken a seat on one of the
large logs before most of the others, and as they all came to sit and eat, it
was noticeable that no one sat beside him. The log bench was nearly eight feet
in length, but it remained empty while the teens, Kate, and Layla crowded onto
the three other logs.

He preferred it that way.

Finishing the last of his bean-paste, he
rose and walked toward the house. Sleep would be welcome.

Layla rose quickly and caught up to him
before he could reach the door. “Have you forgotten your promise?”

He stared at her blankly for a moment
before his memory clicked and provided the answer, “Music?”

She nodded.

“It has been over a month since I played,”
he told her, thinking of his time with the elders and his week traveling before
that. “I may not be at my best.”

“It has been even longer since my ears
have heard it,” she reminded him. “No one will criticize your playing.”

“Fine.” He went into the house and found
his cittern. Emerging again a few minutes later he returned to his place by
the fire.

All eyes were on him now. The
conversation died away as he began to tune the strings. The children of Colne
were used to music, unlike the slaves of the She’Har, but although a musical
instrument wasn’t a rarity for them, it was still a welcome change from their
bleak day.

He played ‘The Merry Widow’ first, hoping
to lighten the mood, but the notes grated on his nerves, and his heart wasn’t
in it. The light gaiety of the song didn’t suit his mood. He considered
playing ‘Dana’s Lament’, but one glance at Kate sitting beside Layla across the
fire dismissed that notion from his mind. It was a sad, sorrowful melody, but
the romantic connotations were too much for him. He still remembered the first
time he had played it for her, over fifteen years ago.

Instead, he started an unnamed tune, one
he had created himself over many long evenings of playing with the strings. It
had no words, and because he had crafted it himself, it was wont to change at
times to suit his mood. He began softly, letting his fingers find their rhythm
before increasing the intensity of the sounds.

The faces staring at him around the fire
bothered him, so he closed his eyes, turning his mind inward. People were the
source of his suffering. The young people he had stolen away from Colne were
the result of his prior sins, and now they suffered at his hands. He hurt
because of them, and they hurt because of him, an endless cycle of pain.
Whenever he looked into their eyes, he saw his own failing, and he could feel
the condemnation that he fully deserved.

His music was angry at first, filled with
the frustration that had been his daily companion since discovering that Haley
had been taken by the Mordan Grove, but as he closed his mind to the outside
world the melody softened.
I am not playing for them.

He played to the silence, the empty place
that was within himself. The void there was cold, but it was also free of
pain, free of all the things that tore at him. His music was a thing of gossamer
and moonlight, but it spoke now of solitude, quiet reflection, peace—perhaps it
even spoke of forgiveness.

Tyrion’s thoughts were free now, relaxed,
for the music had taken the emotion. His fingers expressed the feelings that
he no longer wanted, leaving his heart and mind lighter. Garlin’s face
appeared in his imagination, staring at him with the same strange curiosity
that it always had when Tyrion played the cittern.

The warden had been his captor, even his
tormentor once, but had later become a friend—his only friend among the cruel
people tainted and twisted by the She’Har.
“Thank you, Tyrion, for the music,”
said Garlin once more, as his mind replayed their last meeting.

The scene that followed was grotesque, but
he didn’t shy from it, letting the music rise from a sad farewell to a
discordant crescendo. His hands were full of fire, but his heart was empty.
I
feel nothing.
The words floated through his mind above the chaos of his
playing. They passed on, and the music continued, carrying him forward, to his
parents.

Helen and Alan Tennick were there, hidden
in the undertones, waiting for their chance, and once the violence of Garlin’s
death had passed, they moved forward to fill the foreground with his mother’s
sad eyes and his father’s tears.
“I wish you’d never been born, Daniel,”
said
Alan once more.

The music was lost then, falling and dying
abruptly, leaving a rude silence behind full of hurtful things.
That’s not
me,
he thought.
Daniel isn’t my name anymore.
But the fire had
left his hands, and now it was at his center, burning through his chest and
running like cold cinders down his cheeks.

Tyrion opened his eyes.

The young people around the fire stared at
him with dismay on their faces, or simple shock. Their short lives had not yet
given them the experience to interpret what they had just heard, instead the
trauma in his music had left them stunned. The only ears that had understood
had been the ones hidden by a soft fall of coppery hair.

Green eyes stared at him, wet and swollen,
while beside her Layla sat with her head bowed, afraid to show her pain
openly. Perhaps the warden had understood as well.

Kate’s lips parted, as if she might speak,
but Tyrion rose and tucked his cittern under one arm before the moment could
complete itself.

“That’s enough music,” he said, turning
away.

I feel nothing,
he told himself, but wishing wouldn’t stop the pain. Returning to
his room, he shut the door and activated the enchantment that sealed the room.
No one would interrupt his slumber.

***

Morning brought a new day and with it new
changes. In particular the cooking crew rebelled and deposed Emma Phillips as
the head cook. Anthony Long emerged as the next in the chain, and he
supervised a much better batch of oatcakes for breakfast. He also asked Tyrion
for permission to send some of the others out to hunt.

“We’ll send some of the ones on the
building crew,” responded Tyrion. “It will be a good experience for them using
their abilities.”

Byovar showed up not long after that,
walking carefully along the worn path that led out from the edge of the
Illeniel Grove and across the field to Albamarl. Tyrion sensed him coming and
was waiting outside before he arrived.

“Morning, lore-warden.”

“Good morning, Tyrion,” returned the
She’Har. “I have news for you.”

“Will Lyralliantha be back soon?”

Byovar shook his head, “I don’t know. My
news is about something different.”

“Let’s walk then,” said Tyrion. “I need
to stretch my legs.” He took a circuitous route, leading Byovar out around the
edge of his stone house and through the lightly wooded areas beyond.

“The elders have sent word that they will
support your decision,” said the lore-warden.

“My decision?”

“To capture your offspring, to bring them
here.”

Tyrion coughed, “Don’t you mean
Lyralliantha’s decision?”

“My people do not deal in falsehoods,
Tyrion. One of the details that became clear during your examination by the
elders, was that you are indeed making decisions. Lyralliantha has chosen to
support them, but the choices have often been yours. In fact, bringing the
younglings back here, instead of leaving them with Thillmarius is a prime
example.”

“Do you disapprove of my bringing them
back?” asked Tyrion.

Byovar sighed, “No, but that is not the
point. Thillmarius informed me of your taking them after you had already done
so. He also told me that the Prathions have decided to respect your bond with
Lyralliantha.”

Tyrion nodded, but remained silent, unsure
what to say.

“Word came from the elders last night that
you will be treated as a child of the grove,” added Byovar. “The other groves
will respect their decision as well.”

He stared at the lore-warden, uncertain if
he properly understood what the other man had said. “Are you trying to say
I’ve been made an honorary She’Har?”

Byovar frowned, “You cannot become an
elder, but they will treat you as a child until your death.”

“A child—like…”

“Like myself, or more particularly, like
Lyralliantha,” clarified the lore-warden. “You are not a baratt any longer.
You are like the krytek, a child that cannot grow and will someday die.”

“What about this?” he asked, pointing at
the slave collar.

“As part of the Illeniel Grove, we no
longer require it, but it will be Lyralliantha’s decision whether to remove it
or not.”

“And my children?” pressed Tyrion.

“Are still baratti,” replied the She’Har.
“Your new status does not affect them at all. In fact, that is the other
matter I have come to talk to you about.”

“They belong to me,” warned Tyrion. “If I
am no longer a baratt, then they are mine, or at least Lyralliantha’s.”

“You are a child of the grove, you are
Illeniel. They belong to the Illeniel Grove,” corrected the lore-warden. “If
you wish to remain as you are, you will submit to the will of the elders.”

“What do they want?”

“Your recent fighting, with the wardens
and some of the children of the other groves, has been costly. We have given
much shuthsi to balance the debt you created.”

Tyrion’s brow shot up, “The grove paid for
the wardens I killed?”

Byovar nodded, “The wardens, three
children of the groves, and the warden you took yesterday. Your actions have
greatly weakened the Illeniel Grove’s standing.”

He narrowed his eyes, “The elders didn’t
have to do that. It would have been simpler to disavow me, even if that
included Lyralliantha. Why would they…?” His mind followed the thought to its
logical conclusion. “No!”

“They will fight in the arena, for the
greater good of the Illeniel Grove,” said Byovar coolly.

The words chilled him. He had been afraid
of this outcome, but he had hoped that by keeping them under the Illeniel
Grove’s control he could avoid it. It was somewhat ironic that it was his
fighting to make it so that resulted in them being forced to fight. Tyrion’s
knuckles had gone white. He was clenching his fists too hard. He took a deep
breath and forced himself to relax his hands and arms.

“You understand?” asked Byovar, watching
him with some concern. “They will fight,” repeated the lore-warden.

“If they will just let me talk to…”

“There will be no negotiation, Tyrion.
They were clear in their message. Your children will fight, or you and Lyralliantha
will become nutrients for the elders. There is no other way, and your
offspring will fight, whether you train them or whether someone else is forced
to the task.” Byovar’s face was empty of all expression.

“Nutrients for the elders” was a phrase
used by the She’Har that referred to their method of using bodies as compost to
feed the god trees. Byovar’s words weren’t a threat. The She’Har didn’t
threaten, they ‘informed’.

Tyrion could feel his anger building once
more, but he held it in check. Instead he bowed his head, acknowledging the
command.

“Much has changed since you came to us,
Tyrion,” said the She’Har. “You are the first sentient being outside of our
own species to be considered a child of the grove.”

“Change isn’t always good, Byovar,” said
Tyrion. “I was also the first Illeniel slave. Now they are planning to use my
children in their games.”