Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (38 page)

“I don’t understand.”

The man unlaced his hands. “I may use them to fashion a home, to cup the face of a loved one, I may even use them to take up instruments of war.” He turned his hands over each time he listed an example. “I may even put them before the light and create forms of things which are not.” He joined his hands in odd ways and cast shadows of animals and people on the cavern wall behind him. Slowly, the images there became more distinct, moving independently and taking on color and sound. Suddenly, Wendra was watching Balatin play a cithern on the steps of their home while she and Tahn danced. Her father, laughing, showed them how to perform the next step in the jig while his fingers plucked the strings and the yard rang with a lively tune. Tapping one foot, Balatin finally stood and joined them in their dance, while continuing to play. A freshet of tears escaped Wendra’s eyes, and instantly she remembered the tune her father played, the same tune as her box.

She laughed out loud, and the images disappeared, replaced by the old, white-haired gentleman sitting deathwatch with her at her fire.

His smile never wavered. “Do you understand now?”

Wendra shook her head, then stopped. “Yes. Maybe. These are my comforts as my body fails, as the form inside of me rises and departs, leaving these memories behind.”

The old man’s smile broadened. “Dear Wendra, death is a song worth singing, but not yet for you.” He again rested his elbows on his knees and settled in as though preparing to tell a story. “With my hands I can create many things, many good things. But my art, the things I touch and shape, are only my best interpretation of what I see and feel inside.” He touched his chest. “They can be glorious, as Shenflear’s words or Polea’s paintings. They may ascend into the sky with magnificence, as Loneot’s great buildings that arc and rise in sweeping bridges and spires on the banks of the Helesto. But”—the man leaned forward, excitement clear in his features—“can you imagine what thoughts, what images existed in the hearts and minds of such men and women, but were not so perfectly reflected in the efforts of their hands?”

Wendra began to feel cold inside. The fire burned on, but held no warmth for her. Its flames, even the old man’s kindly face, blurred and wavered before coming into sharp focus again. Beyond it all, her wood box played on, slower now as it wound down, and she tried to fix her attention upon the melody, to grasp something she knew was real, something she could understand.

The old man sat up and flung back his great white cloak. In the firelight, his white hair and beard looked regal. He again fixed his stare upon her, never losing his warm smile. “You, Wendra. The instrument you must play is
you
. It is the first tool, the first instrument. It is a uniquely wondrous symmetry of Forda I’Forza. And there will be those who will teach you. But you shall have to get up off this floor.” He patted his leg. “So, how will you do that, Anais? Tell me, what song will serve your need?”

“I’ve no strength to rise,” Wendra said. “I’ve sent a boy into the world to bring me help, and I worry that he is harmed.”

“The Quiet do not seek you or the boy. Trust me, you are safe here.”

“My brother … they came to our home … my child…”

“Indeed,” the old man said. “And these are strains of a song that should be sung with reverence and hope, because they create in you what only you can voice. Learn from them, Wendra. I have stood in places for days at a time to hear and know the voices they sing with. Even this place, this dark cave, knows a song. It is inside you now, in the rocks and fire and ash, and the lad Penit and what you see in him that is forever lost to you. It is a lament, Wendra, that you may sing of this place, this moment … but there is joy in that, too. What reprise of joy in sympathetic understanding might that give to another, who cannot for themselves express such things. Not unlike your box.” He motioned toward her music box. “What is captured there that causes you to return to that simple melody? Things forever lost to you in flesh, but alive to you in spirit. Like the wood relinquishing its form to exist as something brighter. We create as we can, but the end must be to fashion something finer of ourselves.”

For the first time, the old man’s eyes grew distant. “But the songs are changing, and there are few who can sing the songs that have given us courage and hope. And greater still, Anais, is the call of the Descant. And so you must arise.” He smiled kindly. “I ask you again, what song is it?”

In a moment, the old man was gone, leaving Wendra in the darkened cave on a bed drenched with the sweat of her fever. The smell of ash rose in cloying waves. And more clearly, more intimately, she could hear her box plucking its tune in the darkness. The soft click of the gears hummed just beneath the melody. In the shadows, Wendra parted her lips to hum in time with the song of her box, and her chills began to fade.

*   *   *

As Wendra sang, she found her voice gaining strength rather than tiring. The natural reverberation in the cave carried her soft intonations farther than she projected them. But her humming soon strengthened, and as she remembered Balatin singing to the melody, she began to intersperse words. Every few minutes, when her box wound down, she rewound the cylinder and sang again to its accompaniment.

Penit had not returned and Wendra began to fret over him, but she could do nothing if she remained ill, so she continued to sing, listening to her own voice echo and re-echo off the rock walls. In the welling sound that filled the cave, she found unique comfort … and more. Wendra’s fever broke before the mouth of the cave darkened on her second day there. She nibbled lightly at some of Sedagin’s bread and sipped cool water. But even while she ate, she hummed around her food, beginning to make subtle changes in the melodies, singing counterpoint to the original tune. The creation of new rhythms and harmonies to the music excited her and she found strength to build a fire to keep her warm as she continued to sing changes on Balatin’s simple tune.

The sun had not yet risen before feeling in her hip and lower leg returned. She had continued to compose her own lyrics and harmonies to the weave and flow of the music begun in her box, and the swell of sound caused her heart to quicken. The vaulted cavern resonated with a score that wrapped Wendra in its healing embrace.

When dawn touched the cavern entrance with the light of day, Wendra realized she had been singing all the night through. Yet her arms were light, her eyes alert, and, without thinking, she stood and felt only the faintest trace of pain in her wound. She lifted her voice in exultation, then ceased her song, listening with gladness as her final notes echoed into the recesses of the cave and outward to the coming day.

Carefully, she walked to the entrance and squinted into the light, allowing her eyes to focus. Early morning haze hung upon the land, leaves and grass glimmering with dewdrop emeralds. The sweet smell of vegetation washed over her, and she took it in gratefully after the old earth and ashes of her fireside bed. Looking out, she could see no sign of Penit, or of the others. They had surely started for Recityv. She hoped Tahn had made it out of the fog. Her brother was prudent, but apt to get into trouble when paired with Sutter—though she genuinely liked Sutter. She had little choice but to try and make it to Recityv herself. But how long should she wait for Penit to return? He’d promised he would. Still, he was so young.

Wendra returned to her fire and took a quick meal. She packed her box and blanket into the saddlebag Penit had left her, snuffed out the fire, and returned to the mouth of the cave to wait for him. She sat on a large rock in the sun and closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth and light that penetrated even her eyelids. She forgot for the moment where she was and why she was there, and found again on her lips a few notes of the melody she’d sung all the previous night. Then suddenly, the image of the old man with a white beard and cloak surfaced in her mind, startling her.
Fever visions!
But it had seemed so real. A smile touched her lips as she thought of the old gentleman’s fatherly smile. It spoke of certainty and understanding, and Wendra longed for such reassurance.

With growing clarity, Wendra realized what had just happened. She had healed herself by doing nothing more than what came most naturally to her. Music had always been a central part of her life. Balatin had played cithern and often sang with her. It had never been more than entertainment, distraction, perhaps reverie. What had happened in the cave was something spoken of only in rumor, a story repeated more in legend than history. Always it was interpreted as metaphor or symbol, the power of song to affect the way of things.

Wendra lifted her pant leg so she could examine her wound. The cut had closed over and was now only slightly discolored, the blood completely gone. One might have thought the damage to be years old. She touched the scar lightly, feeling a dull pain from the flesh inside. “Will and Sky,” she muttered. “How can this be?”

She pulled her hair back and fastened it with a short strip of hide. The sun burned hot upon the face of the cliff, causing her to sweat. Half the day she waited for Penit’s return, scouting around nearby, singing softly to completely mend herself. After eating a bit more of her food, she found a trail leading east along the north face. Her rations would not last, and she began to more fully regret sending the child out to seek help.

Hoisting the saddlebag over her shoulder, she set out, following the trail of hoofprints and hoping Penit would use the same path to return … if he was able to return.

The trail took Wendra east until dusk, when it veered southeast alongside a small river. She made camp, lit a fire, and ate a small supper, her concern growing for the boy. The sun dipped below the horizon, and gentle shades of brown and red streaked the sky, leaving sepia shadows on the land. Wendra filled her waterskin from the river and washed her face. Kneeling at the river’s edge she listened, truly hearing for the first time the musical cadence of the current, the babble and chuckle of the water over stones, the rush of it around stems and branches growing or dangling in its flow. Wendra thought she could also hear the deeper, quieter pull of the current from the bottom of the river, where cold, blue water moved more slowly, more powerfully. The several voices of the river commingled in her ears in a lulling melody, its soothing power draining the fatigue of the day away from her tired muscles.

She returned to her fire and sat patiently as day gave way to night. Softly she began to hum, creating her own tune in dual harmony with the fire and the river, her concentration so complete on her song that she did not hear the approach of feet. Before she knew what was happening, three figures stood immediately opposite her, smiling devilishly in the glow of her fire.

“What fortune,” the man in the center said. “This place is like a garden; we leave it and it grows new fruit.”

The two other men laughed, their eyes appraising Wendra the way she’d seen herders do with new breeding stock.

The man who spoke had rough, handsome features, two days’ growth of beard, and thick brows. His eyes shone with an intelligence the others lacked, and his clothes were simple but better cared for.

Suddenly, she knew these men for what they were: highwaymen.

Wendra discerned from the man’s first comment that their intentions were not charitable, but Balatin had taught her never to show fear. Half the battle is what they don’t know, her father had been fond of saying. She composed herself, allowing a bit of an edge to her voice, and inclined her chin smugly, preparing to ask the only thing she cared to discuss with these men.

“I seek a child, a boy, about ten years old,” she said. “He would have been traveling this way a day since.” She leveled her eyes at each man in turn. Their stares were filled only with greed and wantonness.

The man on the left spoke up in a voice bruised by too much tobaccom. “You ought to be worried—”

“Silence,” the first interrupted. He looked at Wendra, his eyes appraising her in a different way than the other two. A softer look spread on his handsome face. “Indeed, lady, we have seen the child.” He ceased talking as though he had more information and intended Wendra to know he was holding something back.

It shall be like that, then, hare and wood-cat. One pursued, but both a part of the game.

Wendra steadied her eyes in an unflinching stare upon the obvious leader of the small band and gave a knowing smile. “You’ve seen him, have you? Well, perhaps you also know where I might find him.” She reclined a bit to show her lack of concern.

Straightaway, a wide grin spread on the highwayman’s lips. “I think we might, lady, but how could we ask you to travel these dangerous roads alone?” He paced past his men to one side of the camp.

“Do I look as if I am in need of assistance?” Wendra asked. “Unless of course, my new friend, you mean me some harm.” She lowered her gaze to the man’s sword, holding her smile as surely as she’d seen the old man do in her visions. Inside, panic gripped her, but she knew she mustn’t show it. “I seem to be quite well in this suspicious land you describe. Not a jot of trouble, not a curious word, until now.”

The highwayman bowed persuasively. “Well said, lady, well said. Allow me to introduce myself, and then you and I will no longer be strangers. Jastail J’Vache.” He held his bow, but inclined his head to watch for Wendra’s approval.

A great game you play. We trade places as the hare.
Wendra nodded. “A man of breeding,” she said, her words laced thinly with sarcasm. “How fortunate for me to have met you, if, as you say, the world about is so corrupt.”