Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (70 page)

He let go the string, and realized as it relieved the tension in the haft that he held no arrow. The string hummed, but nothing sailed against the light of dawn. A mocking laughter descended out of the heavens, rolling on waves of mist and brushing his face like the kiss of a mourner, all heartache and loss. Tahn whirled to see the man, but behind him all was emptiness. The hum of his bowstring rose like the tolling of a great bell, the vibration tingling his fingers, turning his hand numb. He lost feeling in his arm and dropped the weapon. Beneath him the soil turned white, spreading outward to rob everything of color. In a frenzy, he thrust his fists against the rock of the outcropping and screamed to hear anything but the awful hum. Hearing nothing, he stopped. Quickly, he took two large rocks and smote them together. No crack. There was nothing in his head but the ringing buzz of his bow’s last release, and nothing in his eyes but colorless earth.

Tahn looked up and screamed into the sky.

He started, and came awake in the wilds, a scream dying to echoes in the trees around him. Sutter still slept, undisturbed, while their guide sat poking at the fire with a slender stick, his eyes on Tahn as he probed the embers. The flame burned low, casting deep shadows over their companion’s eyes but hinting with reddish hues at the dark pupils.

Casually, Tahn passed a hand over the concealed pocket in his cloak.… The sticks were gone. In the same moment, he saw their guide reach down and take them into his hand as though prepared to feed the fire.

Will and Sky, no!

The man did not take his eyes away, appearing to judge the sticks’ value by Tahn’s expression. In the flickering light, Tahn could not be sure if the man smiled. He tried to mask his fear, but could feel his eyes widening in alarm.

What had the man said in his dream?

The thoughts blurred in his mind as he focused on the sticks concealing the messages Edholm had entrusted to them. Their guide raised the sticks near his eyes and considered them. Then he tossed them into the pit, where the fire had burned down to nothing more than a bed of coals. The heat seared them, and they exploded in flame. Tahn lurched from his bed and thrust his hand into the coals after the sticks. The smell of his own burning flesh rose on the smoke, and the stranger’s odd mocking laugh surrounded him. Try as he might, Tahn could not take the sticks in hand. They danced out of his reach, forcing him to stretch farther into the flame. Then the fire’s tongue bit him sharply and Tahn bellowed his pain and frustration into the wooded ceiling of the wilds.

*   *   *

Tahn sat up with a weak yawp following him out of his dream.

“Keep it down, Woodchuck,” said Sutter. “I’m trying to get some sleep.”

Tahn rolled over and looked at the man who had led them from Stonemount toward the northern rim. He sat placidly, staring at the fire, which burned low, just as it had in Tahn’s dream. Attempting to be subtle, Tahn gathered in his cloak so he could sit up. He swiftly checked for the sticks. They were still safe in his inner pocket. The man turned a disarming smile on Tahn, nothing like the clever manipulator of Tahn’s dream.

Tahn, getting to his knees, took several small pieces of wood and cast them into the fire. The man gave him a quizzical look, but said nothing. As the fire brightened, the memory of an unfinished thought nagged Tahn. He’d been trying to recall something as his nightmare had played out.

“You sleep restlessly. You’ve got things on your mind,” the stranger said.

“We all have things on our minds,” Tahn replied.

“So I’ve noticed.” The man settled a thoughtful gaze on Tahn. “Some of the old texts say that sleep is our preparation for death: a day of life and light followed by a quiet, restful end to it in a night’s slumber. Rehearsal, you might say. A pattern we follow often enough to accept when our time is gone and we must return to the earth that makes us. No riddle then why men tussle with it. But it is a noble fight, I say. I would not so easily give in to my barrow.”

The man’s face looked pained as he spoke. Tahn stared aimlessly into the night, thinking of a scholar, here in a forgotten city, alone. He reviewed all they had seen: the great fountains at the city’s great central square; buildings grand and modest fashioned with equal care; a wide ring of untilled land, spotted with groves and dotted with grave makers for those from Stonemount who went to earth before the exodus that abandoned the city forever.

Something flashed in Tahn’s mind, something he’d seen as they’d first passed through the Canyon of Choruses, a figure, little more than a shadow itself, hunched over a grave. The nagging thought took form as he recalled the man’s words from his dream:
Put forth your hand in greeting.

Without turning his back to their guide, Tahn stood and shuffled to where Sutter lay. He nudged his friend’s shoulder with his foot.

“Don’t tell me you’re kicking me just as I was about to fall asleep,” Sutter protested in a thick, surly voice.

“Get up,” Tahn said softly. Something in Tahn’s tone must have struck Sutter, who stood up fast and shrugged off his blanket.

“Are you ready to go?” the man said, rising gracefully. “I sense you’re quick to be shut of these wilds and on your way to wherever fortune next takes you.”

Tahn cautiously picked up his bow and caught Sutter’s gaze before looking down at the sword at his friend’s hip. Sutter understood and rested a hand on the handle in readiness. If their companion noted their apprehension, he did not show it. His gaunt cheeks held shadows in the flickering firelight, but his eyes remained easy. The jewel-encrusted sheath caught the light in colorful prisms, and he pushed back his tricorne hat on his head as Tahn stepped around the fire toward him.

“We’ve come all this way together, borne you company, and haven’t made a proper introduction.”

“How do you mean?” the man asked.

“We do not know your name,” Tahn replied, “though you’ve been good enough to ask after ours.”

“I believe you’re right. How foolish of me.” He fixed them with an earnest, apologetic smile. “The prospect of companionship has made me rude. Forgive me. I am Sevilla Daul.”

“Clumsy of me not to have asked,” Tahn offered. “Accept my apology.” And Tahn extended his hand to Sevilla.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

A Primrose

Braethen opened his waterskin and drained the last few mouthfuls of warm water, hardly enough to wash the dust and grit from between his teeth. He upended the skin and three drops fell into the dirt. While he watched, the earth absorbed the water, leaving no trace. He put a hand where the few drops had fallen; the ground was burning to the touch.

Then he raised his head, shading his eyes and looking both east and west. There still was no sign of the man they sought. There was only the Scar, and the Scar never changed. He’d thought that even this place would be beautiful in the first light of morning. But it was only like the fallow fields west of the Hollows where scarecrows hung limp and forgotten on posts, their stuffing a memory and their clothes faded by the sun.

They’d been moving since before sunrise, Vendanj contining to lead them north and east. All day they walked in the oppressive heat. Late in the day, Braethen swooned. He caught himself with several shuffling steps. Beads of sweat ran down his neck. He clutched his shirt and mopped them away. Their water was gone, and the horses, too, stumbled more frequently each hour.

Ahead, the trail disappeared where the earth slid away down a hill. Mira’s head popped up from the gully, and the Far came running toward them, one hand raised for them to stop.

Vendanj pulled up, and one of the horses immediately lay down, chuffing from its nostrils with the exertion. In a moment, the other two mounts had done the same. The thought of sitting daunted Braethen, and he remained standing as Mira sprinted toward them. Simply watching her tired him further.

Her hair and shirt hung wet with perspiration. Her face, too, ran with sweat, but she did not wipe it away.

It took her but a moment to catch her breath. “A thousand strides. Down the hill and over a second shallow rise.”

“Did you see him?” Vendanj asked.

“No. And I did not look to see if it was occupied. There are strange tracks crossing the path at the base of the hill, where those in the house could not see. Less than a day old.” She looked back the way she had come. “Quietgiven could have come this far into the Scar unnoticed. If they know why we have come, then they may lie in wait for us.”

“We’ve no choice.” Vendanj looked at their mounts. “We’ll go the rest of the way without the horses. If the house is still occupied, whoever lives there will have water and we can return and refresh the animals. If it is abandoned, then they will have filled a noble purpose.” The Sheason turned to Braethen. “Keep a ready hand at your sword, sodalist. You’ll be all right.”

Braethen licked dry lips.

Vendanj began walking. “Circle wide,” he said to Mira, his gait quickening. “Come at the house from behind. Do not be seen. If it is not him, we will want your presence to be a surprise.”

The Far left without a word, running east. Braethen watched her go, admiring the ease with which she moved, the grace and speed, like a wager-horse running the loam. She moved as though unaffected by the heat. Seconds later she disappeared over the edge of the hill. Braethen steeled himself, and worked to keep up with Vendanj. A new determination seemed to burn in the Sheason, and with each passing step, Braethen felt it grow inside himself.

Vendanj and Braethen came to the crest of the hill that dropped to a gulch below. A dry riverbed twisted away to the north and south. After a brief survey in each direction, Vendanj started down toward the small house, standing like a lone way station in very a long route. It appeared somehow like both a part of the landscape and an intrusion on the emptiness of the Scar.

Fifty strides from the structure a natural circular depression in the land surrounded it. Large red masonry bricks stood at each corner; they looked like the baked clay of the Scar. Wood planks ran in vertical rows, bleached and coarse from exposure. The roof had been covered with thin pieces of sandstone, and several ladders stood against the roof’s edge, giving Braethen the impression that it was used as a lookout.

He followed Vendanj a few steps closer. A slight wheeze of wind around the chimney trailed in the air like an unseen streamer, and stirred dead grass here and there.

Vendanj put a hand across Braethen’s chest to stop him.

The Sheason waited, listening, then dropped his hand and pointed toward an empty weapon rack standing against the house.

“It may be hard to respect this man,” Vendanj spoke low. “But hold your tongue. His bitterness is earned.”

As they stepped full out of the shallow gully, it occurred to Braethen where they must be: the depressed ring where Maral Praig and his Sheason had stood in a circle to call their last power from the Will in the Battle of the Round. The sodalist’s heart jumped at the thought of being at the center of where it took place. He wondered if the Sheason who died here were buried nearby. Looking at the house before him, it struck him how like a grave marker it seemed now, as if each stone represented the life of one who fell in the final call of the Round. Whoever this Grant was, he either admired those who died here or held them in contempt, to make his home in the midst of their death.

They went to the house and stopped. Vendanj listened. “Hello,” he called, keeping a short distance from the door.

No reply came.

“Grant,” the Sheason said, his voice softer.

Still silence.

Shutters fastened from inside stood closed over the windows.

“Take your weapon in hand,” Vendanj said.

Braethen drew his blade, as quietly as he could. The Sheason went forward and rapped at the door.

“If you are there, Grant, we have urgent things to discuss with you.” The Sheason’s voice seemed a loud intrusion in the silence of the Scar.

Braethen eyed the corners of the house and wondered where Mira was. His belly churned with expectation. He might need to use his sword; the thought thrilled and troubled him. A flash of the darkness he’d experienced when he’d first held it raced in his mind.

“Do not judge us because you are sentenced here,” Vendanj continued.

Nothing stirred inside the home. A gust of wind kicked dust into their eyes. Vendanj waited for a lull in the warm breeze, then tried the door. The handle gave easily and the door swung inward. Vendanj stepped back, bending slightly at the waist.

Before Braethen knew what was happening, Vendanj disappeared inside. A moment of indecision swept through him. Standing alone with his sword, he reflected how different it was for him to call on a home, any home, without a book in his hand. But the moment passed in an instant, and the sodalist jumped through the opening, both hands tight upon his blade.

Everything went black, and panic struck him.
I am back in the darkness!
He gripped tight his sword, trying to remember the words he’d spoken the first time, words that had allayed his fear. He could not remember, and his heart pounded. Then the blackness receded a shade.
I am a fool!
It was not the same emptiness as before; the interior of the home simply lay cloaked in darkness. The stark change in light had left Braethen temporarily blind. He swung his head back and forth, trying to fix his sight on something. Shapes and shadows seemed to dance around him. He jerked his blade toward them in rigid strokes.