Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (84 page)

Penit shook Wendra’s hand to get her to look at him. “I do run fast, you know. If I win, then maybe I can tell them all about the Bar’dyn. They can send their army to save your brother.”

Wendra felt a jab of memory at the mention of Tahn. She hoped he would be safe in Recityv by the time they got there.

“The palace walls still show the markers of the race course,” Seanbea continued. “Children who hear the story can be seen racing one another along those walls.” The Ta’Opin’s voice evened to a serious tone. “The regent has called a date for a running of the Lesher Roon … and she’s put out a call for the Convocation of Seats.”

Wendra chilled at the mention of it. “Why?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Seanbea replied. “I’ve been out visiting cities and towns, collecting instruments and looking for singers.” He gave her a knowing look. “The messenger birds came into the places I’ve been, and word of it spread fast.”

They were all quiet for a time, each seeming to think about what it could mean. The Ta’Opin started again, “But the Roon isn’t just a contest, boy. It
means
something to run that race. You’d do well to remember that.”

“I will,” Penit said, excitement still ringing in his words.

Wendra let the discussion of the race end, and she looked about her at the instruments and parchments pushed aside to make room for her. She remembered there being a great deal more in Seanbea’s wagon when she’d seen it a few nights before.

“What happened to your cargo?” she asked.

“My cargo is still in the wagon.” Seanbea answered, the sound of a smile on his face as clear as laughter.

“Yes, but not all of it,” Wendra persisted.

“Right you are,” the Ta’Opin conceded. “I had to stow some in the hills so that you could rest. But don’t you—”

“Seanbea, you can’t do that. Those instruments were old, they’ll—”

“—concern yourself. I’m still carrying an old instrument.” The wagon bench creaked. This time she cranked her head at an angle so she could see his face. “There’s nothing in this wagon as important as you, Anais. I think I knew it when you joined my song beside the fire. That’s why I pretended to leave, then tracked you into those mountains where the highwayman took you.” He paused, his voice then sounding far away. “I’ve not heard those sounds in my life. I’ve seen them written on parchment, different arrangements, but the same motifs, the same phrasings, the same mournful lines.”

“How could you have heard—”

“Music is a response, Anais,” he said reverently. “A response to what is in our heart. There have been some who put those feelings to parchment. Not exactly the way you did, but enough that I recognized the sad beauty of them … the danger in them.”

He reined in and stopped the cart. He turned all the way around, putting his feet into the back of the wagon, and looked down at Wendra, commanding her attention. He knitted his fingers and leaned forward, bracing his arms on his knees. “You’ll want to listen close, Anais. Think back and you’ll probably remember a time when your songs seemed to do more than just tickle your tongue. A time when they did more, when they
caused
more. Don’t bother to tell me about it, and don’t try to deny it to yourself.”

Seanbea looked at Penit, as if trying to decide whether to go on. He gave the boy a wink. “What you do, what you are, is more an instrument than anything Descant is expecting me to bring. Never you mind the stuff I left behind. It’s covered and will keep. You, my girl, must do neither. The changes that prompt the regent to call a full council are likely the same that sent me into the land to find and haul these rusted items to Recityv. And now that I’ve seen Quietgiven so deep in the land, I’m almost sure of it. That they almost had you makes my blood cold.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “What I saw you do to them … You’ve never done it before, have you?”

“No,” she managed. Dark memories flared in her mind. She wondered if her song would have grown dark enough to steal Penit’s light. “I’m not even sure what happened.”

“I’ve never seen it,” Seanbea said. “But I’ve heard the stories. When I trained at Descant with the Maesteri, they warned us of it. But a thousand voices could gather notes to song and offer them as painfully as you and the world would not change its form a jot. This thing in you, Anais, is a rare music indeed. And music touches eternity.” The Ta’Opin reached down and placed his hand over her forehead. “But there are two eternities, Wendra; your song can inspire hope and lead men to a better tomorrow, or it can bring death and damnation. Having such power is a responsibility you must learn to shoulder. That is why we’re going to Recityv,” he concluded.

“What changes inspire the regent to assemble a full council or recall a convocation dead for generations … or cause a desire for dilapidated instruments and moldy sheets of music?” Wendra asked.

“What I know would be only half the truth, and not rightly spoken of here. Besides, there’s no time to waste on unsafe roads.” He pulled his legs up and spun to face forward again. “You’ll have questions, I’m sure. Those at the cathedral can answer them for you better than I. You rest. I’ll stop at nightfall, but just long enough to brew some koffee and rest the team. We should get to Recityv tomorrow.”

Wendra looked up at the leaves and sky passing in a mosaic against the failing sun. She could smell the brass and wood of the wonderful instruments Seanbea still carried, the dusty smell of old parchment. As the wagon creaked northward, Wendra kept firm hold of Penit’s small hand.

“Just wait,” the boy said, his smile unfailing. “I’ll take care of you.”

Wendra placed her other hand over Penit’s sturdy fingers.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

A Quiet Cradle

When the greater light pushed up from the distant mountains before them, Braethen saw an end to the Scar. A thin line of green on the horizon spoke of life and growth. The promise in the color brought emotion to his throat. He had almost forgotten the simple beauty of foliage, and he found himself eager to reach it, to put the Scar behind him.

Grant had given instruction to his wards, taking them by the hand one by one before departing. For all his bitterness, he remained the common bond each of these abandoned children clung to in the waste of the Scar. In a real way, he was their father.

He was a shadow, Braethen thought, exiled by an order penned on official stationery, a man who, though he had lived here for nearly twenty years, had not aged as he traced the growth of this arid, wounded land. Yet this shadow also preserved the lives of children in a place so lonely and harsh that the only meaning in their lives seemed to be what they gave one another. Respect spread in the sodalist’s bosom for Grant. What had he done to deserve this punishment?

Grant motioned to the right and angled his horse in a southeasterly direction. They followed the exile down a short slope into a featureless plain that ran outward in a pattern of grey and white earth less populated with sage and barren of trees, save one. A hundred strides from the base of the hill stood the lone tree, its branches dead to even the memory of its leaves. The trunk rose in a gentle twist of bleached wood, like bone left in the sun. Thick limbs snaked away from the trunk, ending in jagged snarls as if snapped off long ago. The bare branches offered no shade from the greater light, which rose hot in the sky even in these earliest moments of day. Braethen realized for the first time that the heat in the Scar came up from the earth as much as down from the heavens, as though the soil had no use for the sunlight, which it caught for only a moment before releasing again.

Grant stopped and slid effortlessly from his saddle. He crossed a few strides to the tree; a hollow had been carved directly into the trunk. The man paused there a moment, looking up at the tree the way Braethen might an old friend, though one he might like soon to forget. Grant then placed his head at the hole and looked inside. When he pulled away, his face was contorted by a grimace so ugly and full of pain that Braethen turned from the sight of it.

Both Mira and Vendanj dismounted and started toward the tree. Grant held up a hand to stop them. “No. The cradle is my responsibility.” He waited a moment longer, his face slowly returning to the dispassion Braethen had seen the exile wear in his home. Then Grant looked back to the hollowed tree and reached inside. With a sudden jerk, he grabbed something and ripped it from the hole. His iron fist grasped a snake that writhed in his hand. A snarl twisted Grant’s lip before he simply squeezed the serpent so tightly that its movement stopped. The dead snake hung limp in his hand, the exile unwilling to relinquish his death grip over the reptile.

Braethen slipped off his horse and strode to where Mira and Vendanj stood watching. Perhaps the man harbored a distaste for serpents. Grant finally dropped the lifeless creature to the dry ground; the snake fell in a heap. Blood coated the exile’s fingers and hand. He inspected the blood before turning back to the tree. Realization dawned in Braethen’s mind: This was Grant’s cradle, the one he’d spoken of as part of his punishment, the place to which his striplings were brought and left for him to either place or raise.

Tenderly, the man’s arms eased inside the hollowed tree and withdrew an infant. Even from where he stood, Braethen saw the pallor of the child’s skin and the darkness around its eyes and mouth. Grant knelt on the hard earth beneath the dead tree and cradled the dead babe in his arms.

None of them moved, observing a moment of silent reflection for the passing of a life that never knew a hope. The thought of the baby wriggling its arms in ignorance as the serpent coiled nearby seared Braethen’s senses. He shut his eyes to the image. A distant part of him wanted to avenge the child, but the culprit already lay dead near Grant’s feet. A horrible feeling of helplessness gripped him. Whatever his own comfort in taking up the sword, he would forever be too late to change the ending that lay in the exile’s arms. He thought of Wendra then, and wondered how deeply her own wound and scar must be. How she might wrestle with the loss she could not change?

Braethen took an involuntary step forward, then another. The unrealized possibilities of the babe weighed on his mind, as did the injustice and cruelty of abandoning a child this way, leaving it to the caprice of a world it could not comprehend. One hand sought his sword instinctively, as if to affirm his willingness to stand against such things, while in his mind he sought old tales given him by A’Posian, something to allay this terrible iniquity. But there was none, and he stood staring at a surrogate father mourning a child he’d never known.

Mira went to the snake and knelt to inspect it. She and Vendanj exchanged a knowing look. “Hostaugh,” she said. “Not a serpent from the Scar. You won’t find these south of the Pall … unless someone brought it here.”

“What are you saying?” Braethen asked, already sure of the answer.

“The serpent was placed in the tree by Quietgiven.” Mira stood and kicked the snake away with a flick of her boot.

Grant turned, catching a look of the sun low on the eastern sky. “We’re not late, not by more than half a glass.” His voice came questioningly but with resignation. “This is the appointed day, the appointed hour. The child is cold.” He pulled the infant’s blanket around its shoulders as though to warm it.

“It is the poison,” Vendanj said. “The hostaugh is a sidewinder conceived in the Bourne. Its bite steals life to invigorate the beast itself.”

“Why would they do this?” Braethen asked. “I thought Quietgiven sought life for its own use. Wouldn’t they have taken the child?”

“The Quiet seeks Forda in any form, but in an infant it seeks something very specific,” Vendanj explained, speaking directly to Grant.

Grant stared up at the Sheason, and a secret passed between them in a look.

“It is a warning,” Vendanj said, coming closer to peer down at the child. “The child’s parents would surely have cleansed the cradle before placing the child within. No. The serpent was put there after the child’s parents had left, and the child was left to you as a sign.”

“They are mistaken if they think I can be dissuaded over the death of one stripling.” Grant looked away at the vastness of the Scar, a resolute expression settling over the creases in his deeply tanned face.

“It isn’t your care for new wards they mean to disrupt,” Vendanj said. “They will seek to destroy you if you cannot be of use to them in attaining their desire.”

“And what is that?” Braethen asked, irritation edging his voice. So many private conversations and old relationships clouded the Sheason’s exchange with the exile. He felt like the village yokel left out of a conversation between men and women of consequence.

Vendanj looked at him but did not answer, while Mira climbed to the top of the hill and checked their back trail. She returned quickly and shook her head—no one followed them.

Grant gave the babe a final look, his patient, steady eyes acknowledging the end of a cycle, though one closed prematurely. Braethen saw a tenderness in the man he hadn’t seen before. Then the exile gently passed the child to Mira to hold and began digging a grave. Braethen watched as Vendanj knelt beside Grant and the two men dug together in silence. Beneath a dead tree, they scooped the barren earth that would be the final ground for the infant. Braethen joined them, drawing his sword to break up the packed dirt. Vendanj looked once at him as he put the sword to this new use, but the Sheason appeared to approve, and Braethen’s heart gladdened in the act of honoring this tiny life in this small way.