by Anthony Ryan
Her hands twitched in annoyance and a frown creased her brow. The Dark is a word for the ignorant. The people here are Gifted. Different powers, different abilities. But Gifted. Like you.
He nodded. “That’s what you saw in me, all those years ago. You knew it before I did.”
Your gift is rare and precious. My mother called it the Hunter’s Call. In the days of the Four Fiefs it was known as the Battle Sight. The Seordah…
“Blood-song,” he said.
She nodded. It’s grown since our last meeting. I can feel it. You have honed it, learned its music well. But there is still so much to learn.
“You can teach me?” He was surprised at the hope evident in his voice.
She shook her head. No, but there are others, older and wiser, with the same gift. They can guide you.
“How do I find them?”
Your song links you to them. It will find them. All you must do is follow. Remember, it is a rare gift you hold. It may be years before you find one who can guide you.
Vaelin hesitated before asking his next question, he had kept the secret so long it was a habit he found hard to break. “There is something I need to know. How can it be that I have faced two men, now dead, who both spoke with the same voice?”
Her face was suddenly guarded and it was a moment before her hands spoke again. They wished you ill, these men?
He thought of the assassin in the House of the Fourth Order and the murderous desperation of Hentes Mustor. “Yes, they wished me ill.”
Sella’s hands now moved with a strange hesitancy he hadn’t seen before. There are stories among the Gifted…Old stories…Myths…Of Gifted who could return…
He frowned. “Return from where?”
From the place where all journeys end…From the Beyond…From death. They take the bodies of the living, wear them like a cloak. Whether such a thing can truly be done I don’t know. Your words are…troubling.
“Once there were seven. You know what this means?”
There were once seven Orders of your Faith. An old story.
“A true story?”
She shrugged. Your Faith is not mine, I know little of its history.
He glanced back at the camp and its fearful inhabitants. “These people all follow your beliefs?”
She gave a small laugh and shook her head. Only I follow the path of the Sun and the Moon here. Amongst us are Questers, Ascendants, followers of the Cumbraelin god and even some adherents of your Faith. Belief does not bind us, our gifts do that.
“Erlin guided all these people here?”
Some. There were only Harlick and a few others when he first brought me here. Others came later, fleeing the fears and hatreds our kind attracts, called by their gifts. This place. She gestured at the surrounding ruins. Once there was great power here. The Gifted were protected in this city, vaunted even. The echo of that time is still strong enough to call us. You can feel it, can’t you?
He nodded, the atmosphere seemed less oppressive now he knew its meaning. “Nortah said you have bad dreams of this city. Of what happened here.”
Not all bad. Sometimes I see it how it was before the fall. There were many wonders here; a city of artists, poets, singers, sculptors. They had mastered so much, learned so much, they felt themselves invulnerable, thinking the Gifted among them all the protection they needed. They had lived in peace for generations and had no warriors, so when the storm came they were naked before it.
“Storm?”
Many centuries ago, before our kind came to these shores, before even the Lonak and the Seordah, there were many cities like this, this land was rich in people and beauty. Then the storm came and tore it all down. A storm of steel and twisted power. They swept aside the Gifted who fought them and vented all their hate on this city, the city they hated most of all. She paused, a shudder making her pull her shawl around her shoulders. Rape and massacre, the burning of children, men ate the flesh of other men. Every horror imaginable was visited here.
“Who were they? The men who did this?”
She shook her head vaguely. The dreams tell me nothing of who they were or from where they came. I think it’s because the people who lived here didn’t know either. The dreams are the echo of their lives, they only show me what they knew.
She closed her eyes for a moment, clearing her head of the memory, then deftly folded the scarf on her knees and held it out to him.
“I can’t,” he said. “It was your mother’s.”
Her gloved hands took his and pressed the scarf into them. A gift. I have much to thank you for and only this to show it.
In the evening they shared a brace of rabbits Nortah had brought back from his hunt, regaling Sella with the more humorous tales of their days in the Order. Strangely, the stories felt dated, as if they were two old men spinning yarns of long ago. It occurred to him that for Nortah the Order was now part of his past, he had progressed, Vaelin and his brothers were no longer his family. He had Sella now, Sella and the other Gifted, huddling in their ruin.
“You know it’s not safe to stay here,” he told Sella. “The Lonak will not tolerate your war-cat forever. And sooner or later Aspect Tendris is bound to send a stronger expedition to solve the mystery of this place.”
She nodded, hands moving in the firelight. We will have to leave soon. There are other refuges we can seek.
“Come with us,” Nortah suggested. “You do have more right to join this odd company than I, after all.”
Vaelin shook his head. “I belong with the Order, brother. You know that.”
“I know there’s nothing but war and killing in your future if you stay with them. And what do you think they’ll do when they find out your secret?”
Vaelin shrugged to mask his discomfort. Nortah was right of course, but his conviction was unshaken. Despite the burden of many secrets and the blood he had spilled, despite his ache for Sherin and the sister he would never know, he knew he belonged with the Order.
He hesitated before saying what he knew he had to say next, the secret had been kept too long and the guilt weighed heavily. “Your mother and your sisters are in the Northern Reaches,” he told Nortah. “The King found a place for them there after your father’s execution.”
Nortah’s face was unreadable. “How long have you known this?”
“Since the Test of the Sword. I should have told you before. I’m sorry. I hear Tower Lord Al Myrna is tolerant of other faiths within his lands. You may find refuge there.”
Nortah stared into the fire, his face tense. Sella put her arm around his shoulders and laid her head on his chest. His face softened as he stroked her hair. “Yes, you should have told me,” he said to Vaelin. “But thank you for telling me now.”
Some children came running out of the darkness, laughing and clustering around Nortah. “Story!” they chanted. “Story! Story!”
Nortah tried to placate them, saying he was too tired but they pestered him even more until he relented. “What kind of story?”
“Battles!” a little boy cried as they sat around the fire.
“No battles,” insisted a little girl Vaelin recognised as the fearful, wide-eyed child from the camp. “Battles are boring. Scary story!” She climbed into Sella’s lap and settled into her arms.
The other children took up the cry and Nortah waved them to silence, his face taking on a mock-serious countenance. “Scary story it is. But”—he held up a finger—“this is not a story for the faint at heart or the weak of bladder. This is the most terrible and frightful of tales and when I am done you may curse my name for ever having voiced it.” His voice dropped to a whisper and the children leaned closer to catch his words. “This is the tale of the Witch’s Bastard.”
It was an old tale Vaelin knew well: a Dark-afflicted witch from a Renfaelin village snared the local blacksmith into lying with her and of their union a vile creature in the shape of a human boy was born, destined to bring about the ruin of the village and the death of his father.
He thought it an odd choice of story for these children, given as it was often used to warn of the dangers of dabbling in the Dark, but they listened avidly, eyes wide as Nortah set the scene. “In the darkest part of the darkest woods in old Renfael, before the time of the Realm, there stood a village. And in this village there dwelt a witch, comely to the eye but with a heart blacker than the blackest night…”
Vaelin rose quietly and made his way through the darkened ruins to the main camp, where suspicious eyes stared at him from makeshift shelters. There were a few guarded nods of greeting but none of the Gifted spoke to him. They must know I’m one of them, he thought. But still they fear me. He continued on to the building where he had awoken that morning, the place Nortah called a library. There was a faint glow of firelight in the doorway and he lingered outside a moment to ensure there were no voices. He wanted a private conversation with Harlick, the onetime librarian.
He found the man reading by his fire, the smoke escaping through a hole in the ceiling. Looking closer at the fire, Vaelin noted it had an unusual fuel. Instead of wood the flames licked at curled, blackened pages and blistered leather bindings. His suspicions were confirmed when Harlick turned the last page of his book, closed it and tossed it into the flames.
“I was once told to burn a book is a heinous crime,” Vaelin observed, recalling one of his mother’s many lectures on the importance of learning.
Harlick jerked to his feet in fright, taking a few wary backward steps. “What do you want?” he demanded, the quaver in his voice draining any threat from the words.
“To talk.” Vaelin entered and crouched next to the fire, warming his hands and watching the books burn. Harlick said nothing, crossing his arms and refusing to meet his gaze.
“You are Gifted,” Vaelin continued. “You must be or you wouldn’t be here.”
Harlick’s eyes flashed at him. “Don’t you mean afflicted, brother?”
“You have no need to fear me. I have questions, questions a man of learning might be able to answer. Especially a man with a gift.”
“And if I can’t answer?”
Vaelin shrugged. “I shall seek answers elsewhere.” He nodded at the fire. “For a librarian you seem to have little respect for books.”
Harlick bridled, anger overcoming his fear. “I have given my life to the service of knowledge. I will not justify myself to one who does little but litter the Realm with corpses.”
Vaelin inclined his head. “As you wish, sir. But I should still like to ask you my questions. You may answer or no, the choice is your own.”
Harlick pondered in silence for a moment then moved back to the fur-covered stool beside the fire, resuming his seat and cautiously meeting Vaelin’s eye. “Ask then.”
“Is the Seventh Order of the Faith truly extinct?”
The man’s gaze dropped immediately, fear once more clouding his face. He didn’t speak for a long time and when he did his words were a whisper. “Have you come here to kill me?”
“I am not here for you. You know that.”
“But you are in search of the Seventh Order.”
“My search is in service to the Faith and the Realm.” He frowned, realising the import of what Harlick had said. “You are of the Seventh Order?”
Harlick seemed shocked. “You mean to say you do not know? Why else would you be here?”
Vaelin was undecided whether to laugh or cuff the man in frustration. “I came in search of my fugitive brother,” he told Harlick patiently. “Not knowing what I would find. I know a little of the Seventh Order and wish to know more. That is all.”
Harlick’s face became rigid, as if he feared any display of emotion could betray him. “Would you reveal the secrets of your Order, brother?”
“Of course not.”
“Then do not expect me to divulge the secrets of mine. You can torture me, I know. But I’ll tell you nothing.”
Vaelin saw how the man’s hands trembled in his lap and couldn’t help admiring his courage. He had thought the Seventh Order, if it still existed, a malign group of Dark-afflicted conspirators, but this frightened man and his simple courage spoke of something different.
“Did the Seventh Order orchestrate the killing of Aspects Sentis and Morvin?” he demanded, more harshly than intended. “Did they try to assassinate me during the Test of the Run? Did they deceive Hentes Mustor into murdering his father?”
Harlick flinched, gasping out a noise that was half a sob and half a laugh. “The Seventh Order guards the Mysteries,” he said, the words sounding like a quotation. “It practices its arts in service of the Faith. It has always been thus.”
“There was a war, centuries ago. Between the Orders, a war begun by the Seventh Order.”
Harlick shook his head. “The Seventh went to war with itself. It was sundered from within, the other Orders were drawn into the conflict. The war was long and terrible, thousands died. When it was over those of the Seventh who remained were feared beyond reason by the people and the nobility. Conclave decided the Seventh would disappear from the Fiefs and be seen no more by the people. Its House was destroyed, its books burned, its brothers and sisters scattered and hidden. But the Faith requires there to be a Seventh Order, visible or no.”
“You mean the Seventh was never truly destroyed? It works in secret?”
“I’ve told you too much. Ask me no more.”
“Do the Aspects know?”
Harlick shut his eyes tight and said nothing.
Suddenly furious, Vaelin grabbed the man, lifting him clear of the stool, forcing him against the wall. “DO THE ASPECTS KNOW?”
Harlick shrank from him, quailing in his grasp, words bubbling from his lips amidst panicked spittle. “Of course they know. They know everything.”
Memories came in a flood as Harlick’s words struck home. The shift in Master Sollis’s eyes when he first said, “Once there were seven,” Aspect Elera’s instant of fear at the same words, the way Sollis had exchanged glances with her after they told the tale of One Eye’s Dark abilities. And the knowledge behind Aspect Arlyn’s eyes. Am I a fool? he wondered. For not seeing this? The Aspects have been lying to the Faithful for centuries.
He released Harlick and went back to the fire. The books were little more than ash now, the leather bindings curled and charred black amidst the embers. “The other Gifted, they don’t know, do they?” he asked, glancing back at Harlick. “They don’t know what you are.”
Harlick shook his head.
“You have a mission here?”
“I cannot tell you anything further, brother.” Harlick’s voice was strained but determined. “Please do not ask me.”
“As you wish, brother.” He went to the doorway, gazing out at the moonlit ruins. “I would be grateful if you would omit mention of Brother Nortah’s survival in any report you make to your Aspect.”
Harlick shrugged. “Brother Nortah is not my concern.”
“Thank you.”
He wandered the ruins for hours, memories playing though his mind in a torrent. They knew, all this time. They knew. He couldn’t decide if his confusion was born of betrayal or something deeper. The Aspects embody the virtues of the Faith. They are the Faith. If they have lied…
“I really wish you’d come with us.” He looked up finding Nortah perched atop a massive piece of fallen statuary. It took Vaelin a moment to recognise it as the marble head of a bearded man, his carved expression one of deep contemplation. Surely one of the city’s luminaries commemorated in stone. Was he a philosopher or a king? A god perhaps. Vaelin leaned against the statue’s forehead, running a hand over the deep lines in his brows. Whoever or whatever he had been was forgotten now. No more than a great stone head waiting for the ages to turn him to dust in a city where no-one was left to remember his name.
“I…can’t,” he told Nortah eventually.
“You don’t sound so certain now.”
“Perhaps I’m not. Even so, there is much I need to know. I’ll only find an
swers in the Order.”
“Answers to what?”
There’s something growing. A threat, a danger, something that threatens us all. I’ve felt it for a long time, although it’s only now I realise it. Vaelin left it unsaid. Nortah had a new path now, a new family. Sharing would only burden him. “We’re all looking for answers, brother,” he said. “Though you appear to have found yours.”
“That I have.” Nortah leapt down from the statue and held out his sword. “You should take this as well as the talisman. It’ll add to your proof.”
“You may need it, the road to the Northern Reaches will be long and hazardous. These people will need your protection.”
“There are other forms of protection. I’ve spilled enough blood with this. I intend to live the rest of my days without taking another life.”
Vaelin took the sword. “When will you leave?”
“There’s no point waiting for winter. Convincing the others may be difficult though. Some of them have been here for years.” He paused, his expression oddly sheepish. “I didn’t kill the bear.”
“What?”
“During the Test of the Wild. I didn’t kill it. The shelter I built collapsed in the wind. I was desperate, freezing, wandering in the snow. I found a cave and thought the Departed had guided me to shelter. Unfortunately, the bear who lived there didn’t appreciate visitors. It chased me for miles, all the way to the edge of a cliff. I managed to grab on to a branch, the bear wasn’t so lucky. Kept me fed for a while though.”
Vaelin laughed, the sound was strange amidst the ruins, out of place. “You bloody liar.”
Nortah grinned. “Next to the bow it was my major talent.” His smile faded. “I’ll miss you, and the others. Can’t say I’m sorry about the Battle Lord though.”
They walked back to the camp, fed the waning fire and talked of the Order and their brothers for hours. When Nortah finally went to the shelter he shared with Sella, Vaelin settled down in his cloak, knowing that in the morning he would wake early and leave without a farewell. The reason came to him before he tumbled into sleep: I want to stay.
