First Truth

by Dawn Cook

  Bailic tossed the hat to his balcony chair and turned to a small cabinet. His fingers ran lightly over the sundry containers, hunting more by feel than sight, for a jar of oil. “I think,” he muttered as he searched, “that it’s likely the latent Keeper knows of his dormant abilities and is here to find the First Truth.” Bailic straightened with a large jar of black animal grease from the plains. Frowning, he replaced it, taking a jar of light, watery oil instead, made from a foothills grain. Now that the Masters were gone, the book was probably the only way for a Keeper to learn how to use the complicated pattern of tracings that lay unused in his or her thoughts.

  Striding to his worktable, Bailic took one of the rags he used to bathe his eyes and returned to his high-backed chair before the balcony. The appearance of a latent Keeper could work well for him if he balanced it right. The untutored mind lacked wholly in discipline and was therefore frustratingly sensitive. “You could find that book for me,” he said as he tugged a small table closer to his chair. “I need only to claim it for my own then,” he said, pleased at the thought. But he couldn’t let on he knew they were looking for the book. Forewarned is forearmed. Once they were on their guard, he’d never be sure if or when they found it. They might even leave, preferring to risk perishing in the snow then allowing him to claim it.

  If Bailic didn’t believe brute strength was the resort of a feeble mind, he would simply pin them both with a ward, make his demands, and threaten one with death until the other found the book, but why? Bailic was a realist. Bloody experience proved holding and utilizing hostages was difficult and messy, especially for the long period finding the book would necessitate. Far better to leave well enough alone until they found the book for him. Besides, the idea of spending another winter by himself when he could have two guests to torment seemed like such a waste.

  He would be taking a definite chance in allowing a latent Keeper the run of the Hold unchaperoned. Knowing whom to watch would greatly reduce the risk. It would add just enough spice to the game. And he could keep track of the person easily enough. Yes, he thought, twisting the cap out of the jar of oil. His gamble would be almost nothing if he knew who was the Keeper. His personal risk would be reduced as well, and Bailic preferred his battles won before begun.

  Oddly enough, untaught Keepers were surprising in their strength, their abilities not yet shackled by wisdom and restraint. This was exactly why they weren’t granted a source until attaining a certain level of control. All Keepers, latent or not, could send out a pulse of force when under great stress. It wouldn’t do to get his tracings burnt from a knee-jerk reaction. It hurt, not to mention it would leave him unable to implement the smallest ward until his tracings healed.

  He needed to discover who the Keeper was. The man was the more likely candidate, but Bailic refused to chance burning his tracings on the advice of a hat. A Master would simply take an unsanctioned peek at the pattern of tracings sprawled through their minds. The difference between Keeper and commoner was ludicrously distinctive. Bailic, though, had only a Keeper’s skills to draw upon. He couldn’t see anyone’s tracings but his own unless invited or the subject was all but dead.

  Getting one of them to respond to wordless speech would tell him who the latent Keeper was, but either Bailic or his “guests” would have to leave the Hold to bypass its ward of silence. Bailic wasn’t going to abandon the iron-clad protection the Hold provided, and he wasn’t going to let them off the grounds either. Although the ward was a hindrance now, it had been a blessing when the Hold was alive with Keepers. Just imagining the multitudes of silent conversations stretching from one end of the Hold to the other gave Bailic a headache. He didn’t think the Masters had been bound by this ward. News had traveled very quickly in the past.

  Conversations between Keeper and Master had been, without fail, verbal. Never had Bailic heard of an exception to this. It seemed the mighty beings wouldn’t, or more likely couldn’t, speak silently to any but themselves. It was rumored the thought patterns were so different between Keeper and Master that no common ground could be found with which to communicate. When wishing to converse, and that had been often, the great scholars shifted to their more conventional form—the one capable of speech. The only other way was to borrow the unconscious tongue of another. The occupied fool never recalled what transpired as he slept, animated by the thoughts and words of another.

  Bailic began to dab the oil onto the hat, being careful to keep the rag clear of his clothes. The snare he had crafted and utilized with such ease in the past was useless—now that Meson had broken the Hold’s truth ward. Bailic might still lure and trap his prey in his rooms, but they would be under no compulsion to say anything, much less the truth.

  Finding the hints in their conversation as to who had a Keeper parent was his best option, a parent he probably killed. He would have to weigh their words carefully; they were already lying to him. The fear on their faces when he challenged their story of siblings had been real as was their relief when he labeled the plainsman as a flesh-runner. There shouldn’t have been relief. Alarm or cockiness? Yes. But not relief.

  “Not even here an hour,” he mused with a false regret, “and lying already.”

  At least part of their story rang true. Finster’s “school” was well-known, and while looks alone claimed they weren’t siblings, there was an ease between them that spoke of a long association. Perhaps they grew up together, and the man was taking her to the coast as a personal favor. Almost, though, it seemed as if he were courting her, and the thought of that sickened him.

  Bailic sneered as he continued to oil the hat, turning the yellow leather a darker shade with short, abrupt motions. “Disgusting,” he said aloud. “The man’s a full-blooded plainsman. He can do better than a half-breed.” Even taking a foothills whore was better than a half-breed. The man had actually tried to shield her from his sight when he found them in Meson’s old room.

  “And I don’t like them opening your door, Meson,” he muttered as he turned the hat over and began oiling the inside. But Meson had been a trusting fool. Never more than a simple ward on his sill. Anyone with good intentions could bypass the threshold. “Besides,” he said with a snigger, “you were warned not to have any children. You wouldn’t have chanced it, old friend.”

  It was rare that a Keeper had a child when the Masters advised against it. Usually the pattern of tracings degraded rather than improved. The result was a network with only bits and pieces in working order, capable of oddities even their parents weren’t able to mimic, hence, the shadufs and septhamas. Their disjointed tracings gave off a half-resonance, sending their Keeper parent into a dizzy nausea at the mere touch.

  Finished, Bailic set Meson’s hat down and carefully corked the oil jar. The yellow leather was several shades darker but would regain its usual color in a few hours. Meson had been particular about the color of his hat. “Why the Wolves am I oiling his hat?” he said suddenly. “It’s not as if Meson can browbeat me over letting it dry-rot.” He stood, and with a small thought, he severed the window ward stretching thinly over the broken balcony. Snow blew in from the dark, small hard pellets that would continue to fall for days. He snatched Meson’s hat. His arm cocked, tensing, preparing to throw the hat into the black, only to hesitate. “Curse you, Meson,” he swore under his breath as his arm dropped. “Why can’t I be rid of you?”

  But he knew. Deep in his soul he knew. Bailic couldn’t sever his last connection to Meson, to finally end it, and he flushed with anger and self-loathing. From the day they met as boys, Meson had accepted him—a tall, thin plainsman with skin and hair like a hills farmer—when no one else would. “I am a pure blood,” Bailic said fervently, feeling his chest tighten. But for all his claims, he looked like the half-breeds he despised, and Meson had been the only one in his entire life who hadn’t cared. Except for Rema.

  Bailic closed his eyes, taking a long, pained breath as his fists clenched. Rema didn’t count, he avowed as he exhaled. When pu
sh had come to shove, she’d spurned him as well, abandoning him just like everyone else. Bailic replaced the window ward, snapping it into place with an unusual abruptness. He threw the hat into the chair, refusing to look at it.

  The hat was all Bailic had been able to pull from beneath the pile of rock Meson had buried himself under. For weeks the wolves had complained, able to smell but not reach what they considered theirs by right. Everyone else,

  Keeper and student, had been given to the wary scavengers. “But not you, Meson,” Bailic said harshly. “You buried yourself under rock where I couldn’t reach you.” He clutched his coat closer in the chill he had let into his rooms.

  Bailic crouched before the fire to stir it up. “I would have given you a proper funeral pyre,” he whispered to the bright flames. “You were too good for wolf fodder.”

  Slowly he placed the hat back on its shelf and returned to slump into his chair. He listlessly wiped his fingers on the rag, only now realizing he had ruined one of his best eye towels. Smoothing his brow, he took a practiced, calming breath, trying to rid himself of his heavy mood. His eyes fell upon Meson’s hat again, and angry, he rose and strode to his door. He was too restless to sleep and would visit his cellar as he did when his thoughts weighed heavily upon him.

  Shunning a light, he padded down to the great hall and the door hidden in the wall supporting the stairway. He placed his palm to unlock it, and once through, firmly shut it behind him, sealing himself in a damp pitch blacker than a moonless night. By feel alone, he edged past his stack of torches and the dusty lump of Meson’s warded satchel to peer down the dank hole and the cramped stair spiraling down.

  A chill breeze eddied about his ankles like the breath of a giant beast. It had been this ever-present draft that led him and Meson to find the hidden door in the stairway’s wall. As a boy, Meson had pointed out that, when left to their own devices, the feathers of his pillow shifted about the floor of the great hall as if pushed by an unseen wind. Through trial and error they found the secret room. It wasn’t until long after Bailic had begun his conquest that he discovered the second door in the floor leading to the much gossiped about but never seen dungeon.

  Bailic grasped a torch and set his thoughts to light it. Flame burst into existence to throw flickering shadows against the close walls. He nervously licked his lips and started down.

  The mountain seemed to press heavily against him, filling his senses with the biting smell of wet rock. His flickering torch sent smoke to sting his eyes and dry his throat. It was cold, and he was glad for his coat. At the end of the long stairway, he edged unhesitatingly into the narrow passage before him. The ceiling was so low, he had to walk almost double, cramping his back and legs. He knew the passage would eventually open up into a small room just off the spacious cell buried under the Hold. Though only a few body lengths wide, the anteroom would allow him to taunt his prisoner and remain at a reasonable, if not safe, distance.

  He had been in the larger of the two caverns but twice. It was a prison no matter how smooth the floors had been worked or how stately the pillars holding up the distant ceiling were—and it made him uneasy even though it couldn’t hold him. Again he wondered why the owners of the Hold had crafted such a place. It had only one discernible purpose: to confine a Master. It could bind no other. It was rumored some skills the Masters pursued carried a risk of insanity. Perhaps this was where they put them until they recovered their wits. Bailic smiled. It seemed to fit. He had lured and trapped Talo-Toecan down here by telling him his beloved Keribdis had returned and lay wounded, calling for him.

  There was only one other way out besides the narrow crack he now shuffled down, and that was the west gate. It was more of an enormous barred window than anything else, revealing the steep drop-off that was the western exposure of the mountain. It gave Bailic a perverse pleasure knowing his old instructor could see his freedom, yet not partake of it.

  Bailic heard the plinking of water long before the tunnel ended. Tonight it was accompanied by a low warning rumble. The light from his torch fell upon nothing, and he slowly stood, feeling his back crack. He remained by the tunnel’s entrance, squinting at the large, irregular shape behind the widely spaced metal bars. Two yellow eyes, each as big as his head, glittered in the shadow-light. Apparently his presence tonight had been anticipated. His permanent guest was already waiting. There was a glint of torchlight on teeth. They were as long as Bailic’s arm.

  “You’ve been very quiet lately, Talo,” Bailic murmured, not moving from the tunnel’s mouth. “Can it be,” he mocked, “that you are beginning to enjoy your accommodations? Acquired a taste for rats, perhaps?”

  There was no answer but the rumble and the measured drips of water, echoing in the distance. At the edge of the light, the blunt tip of a long tail wove.

  “Come now,” Bailic coaxed patronizingly. “I would lighten your evening with a bit of friendly conversation. Arrange yourself to speak with me.” He stepped closer, trusting the thick bars imbued with ancient strength to protect him. The rods were far enough apart that he could easily slip between them, and although mere metal couldn’t contain his prisoner, the wards that accompanied the bars would. It was a one-way gate, much like the ward on his own door.

  A shimmer of gray swirled behind the gate. The huge eyes vanished, and the great shadow shrank. “Be very careful, Bailic,” a voice grated, replacing the warning growl. “Come much closer and I’ll try the Hold’s strength despite the pain.”

  “Optimistic words, don’t you think?” Bailic said with a sneer. “Especially from one who hasn’t been under the sky for—what is it now a—decade and a half?”

  “Fifteen summers and fourteen winters,” the dangerous voice said wistfully, and a figure of a man moved into the light. The torch did nothing to illuminate his features, lost as they were in the darkness. It was clear, though, his frame was thin and spare, and that he should have no trouble slipping through the bars to his freedom. The shadowy figure took a breath, and lunged as if to do just that, halting shy of the bars, knowing to a hairsbreadth how close he could come.

  Bailic scrambled back, slamming into the wall with enough force to knock the wind from him. The torch fell to roll and sputter on the flagstone. “Curse you!” he wheezed, bent double as he gasped for air. His heart pounded and his sudden sweat turned cold, even as he hated himself for his reaction. He knew he was reasonably safe. Talo-Toecan couldn’t set a ward past the gate.

  Rendering a Master powerless was nearly impossible, but the wards on the gate came close. As long as Talo-Toecan was imprisoned, the Hold, its abandoned city Ese’ Nawoer, and everything in between were completely exempt from his wards. This was to help minimize the possibility of the imprisoned Master joining the thoughts of another, using their tracings to leapfrog his wards farther than was normally possible. To ask to extend this blanket of protection farther than the city was ludicrous, as it would take more strength than even an assembly of Masters could produce. Crafting such a defense was beyond Bailic, but fortunately he didn’t have to. Still, Bailic thought bitterly as he straightened, it must have given the insufferable beast a small bit of pleasure to watch his jailer awkwardly backpedal into the wall in fear.

  “Can something be the matter, Bailic?” Talo-Toecan rumbled, a trace of amusement in his deep voice. “You never come a-visiting unless you’re displeased.”

  “Nothing is wrong.” Bailic haughtily adjusted his coat. Snatching his torch from the smooth floor, he jammed it into a wall bracket. “I came to tell you of my progress is all.”

  Talo-Toecan turned as if to go.

  “Stay,” Bailic shouted, “or it will go badly for our guests!”

  “Very well.” Talo-Toecan sighed. “Talk.” The thin figure returned to the light’s edge.

  Bailic leaned closer. “One of them is a latent Keeper in search of his birthright.”

  Talo-Toecan shrugged dismally.

  “The First Truth and its knowledge will soon be mine,” he
gloated. “Surely such an innocent will respond just the tiniest bit to the book’s call, enough to find its hiding spot before I could, enough to serve my purposes.” Bailic smiled, pleased with the thought. “Soon I will know which is the unlucky fortunate, and I will squeeze the other to get what I want.”

  The Master started. “You don’t know? Didn’t you see . . .” He caught his breath, and a thin chuckle slipped from him. “You don’t know who it is, do you.”

  “Didn’t I see what?” Bailic said, angry his nearsightedness might be held accountable for any of his failures. He didn’t need to see well to succeed. He was clever and quick. But the Master only raised a mocking eyebrow. “See what!” he demanded as Talo-Toecan turned away. There was another shimmer of gray, and his tall figure was gone. Again the low rumble of discontent shifted the chill, damp air.

  “You don’t know anything,” Bailic said, suddenly afraid. “You’re nothing but an archaic remnant of an extinct sect, and you’ll never again be anything more. Hear me, Talo! Nothing!”

  The rumbled warning ceased. Bailic froze, then frantically flung himself back. But he was too slow. With a crack that reverberated in the cavern behind the bars, he was struck by a thin, whiplike coil. Reeling, he scrambled on all fours to the safety of the low archway. Bailic touched his cheek. His hand came away wet with blood. He stared at it in disbelief as the pain blossomed and continued to grow. There was an accompanying retort of agony from behind the bars as the ward sent a pulse of pain faster than thought along Talo-Toecan’s tracings. The beast had been lucky to have slipped even his tail past the ward and not seizured from the pain.

  “Your attempts to stop me will be forever useless,” Bailic all but snarled, and he spun about; the meeting was over. Too fearful to retrieve his torch, he left it behind. For a time it glowed, reflecting off the angry eyes as he crept up the thin tunnel, back to the Hold’s upper rooms.