The Unremembered: Book One of The Vault of Heaven

by Peter Orullian

  At the far end of the town, several large tents glowed like the hollow gourds fitted with candles at the commencement of Passat each Midwinter in the Hollows. But these were grand tents, decorated with stripes that flowed from their pinnacles to the ground. Tahn could see six tents in all, and from a distance could hear the thrum of voices and activity. People were entering and exiting like bees coming and going from a hive. And in the air hung the scent of animals sharing close quarters.

  “A tenendra?” Sutter asked.

  “Looks like it,” Tahn said. “I’ve never seen one in the Hollows.”

  “My father says they’re low entertainment, unworthy of our coin.” But Sutter’s eyes were alight with curiosity. “I don’t suppose it would hurt to test the wisdom of our elders.” He turned a devious grin to Tahn, his smile lopsided, as though the left side of his face was growing numb.

  Tahn looked back at the brightly lit town below. He wanted to see the tenendra. The stories of the feats and wonders they exhibited were known almost as widely as those of the reader. And the bright tents looked warm and welcoming, the kind of thing he and Sutter had talked about finding ever since he could remember.

  But more importantly, they needed a healer.

  “We will go,” he concluded. “But we find a healer first. And remember there’s no one to stand behind us if we get into trouble.”

  “You couldn’t even stand behind me, gimpy,” Sutter said. “Come on, before we miss all the fun.” Then, in a worried tone, he added, “Tahn, I need help. I can’t feel my hands.” Sutter looked unsteady in his saddle. They were running out of time. Whatever had gotten inside Sutter had gone deeper, and would continue to work at him until …

  Sutter clucked at Bardoll and Tahn hurried to catch up. Together they descended into the vale as night closed in completely.

  * * *

  Tahn guardedly watched the faces of people he and Sutter passed as they rode into the town proper. To his surprise, no one seemed to take note of them. Men and women crossed in front of their horses without care. More than once, he and Sutter slowed or wound their way around pedestrians who stopped to share a greeting or an insult with one another. At the prospect of dipping into this new town and its culture, Sutter gave Tahn a look of delighted, unrestrained glee as comic as the scop masks they’d seen in Myrr. But his friend’s eyelids seemed to droop, giving him the look of one deep in his cup of bitter.

  They needed to hurry.

  The variety of fashions gave Tahn the impression that the town hosted travelers from near and far. Every third building either let rooms or announced itself as a full-service inn to this town called Squim. Brightly painted signs nailed to building facades listed what could be purchased within and at what price. More than a few led their menus with blandishments like “Fairest Anais east of the Sedagin,” and more plainly, “Bed Company.”

  And if there were a lot of inns, there were scads of taverns. Loud laughter and the sounds of challenge poured from open doors, and the jangling strains of poorly tuned citherns and badly carved pipes and flutes floated on the air. Each of the taverns had one or two large men sitting near doors propped open for ventilation. Dull expressions hung on their faces, and their massive arms rested in their laps. Hambley had never needed such men to control his clientele, but Tahn felt sure that was precisely these fellows’ purpose.

  Most of the buildings were wood, built with little care for appearance. Rough, ill-fitted planks showed slices of the light within. Narrow alleys ran alongside many of the shops and passed through to secondary streets. Shadowy forms huddled in the darkness of those alleys, the wink of lit tobaccom stems and pipes flaring orange as they smoked there.

  They passed a long building with multiple entrances, each lined with signs two strides high. The signs were large slabs of slate carefully quarried to remain intact. Upon the black surface, long lists of sundry items were scrawled in white chalk. As Tahn and Sutter passed, a short man with thinning hair and wearing an apron bustled out and used a cloth to erase a number of items on two of the slates. Men and women in various states of agitation entered the store. Tahn watched some who carried wrapped parcels, whose heads twitched and who looked around nervously as they passed through the doors. A few women went in looking distressed and mournful, their gait halting as they neared the entry. One woman strode briskly up to the door, her face heavily painted and her bosom threatening to free itself from its tight, constraining bodice. She carried a man’s belt over her shoulder like a hunter returning with game from a hunt. The buckle glinted in the light from the shop’s windows, casting shards of blue and violet and red on the ground behind her. She disappeared inside without a backward glance.

  “What’s that?” Sutter asked.

  “I would guess it’s some kind of trade shop.”

  Without realizing it, they’d stopped in the street to observe the traffic in and out of the many doors to the long store. Dirty men with knotted beards carried soiled bundles into the place. At one point, Tahn was saddened to see a young boy and girl sneak into the first door on bare feet, holding something together in their small hands. Whatever this place was, Tahn wanted no part of it.

  Farther into town, narrow streets were filled with horses hitched to posts and overland wagons unloading large barrels and chests. People gathered together in storefronts and windows, their shadows falling in long jagged shapes across the road.

  The byways were dry from the recent sun. From their shadows, emboldened beggars reached up toward the street’s edge to harangue passersby, their cant so much like liturgy that Tahn wondered at their potential as readers. The repetition of their pitches soon combined into a deafening white roar that compelled Tahn to cover his ears.

  That’s when Tahn saw it: HEALER, the sign read.

  Tahn and Sutter moved as fast as their injuries allowed, hitching their horses with double knots in this questionable place, and going right in. A diminutive man with stubby fingers and thick spectacles sat in a chair against the back wall. Seeing them, he said simply, “You pay first,” and pointed.

  A metal box with a thin slot in its top stood bolted to the floor in the corner.

  “Three handcoins. I’ll need to see them first.” The little man waddled over and looked up at them.

  “How do we know you can help us?” Sutter slurred.

  “Sounds like you just need to sleep off some bitter, except your eyes look funny. Come now, my fee.”

  Tahn found the payment and showed the healer, who snatched up the money and rushed to put it into his box. His face lit in delight at the clanging sound of the coins as they rattled. He then turned back toward them. “Okay, what ails you?”

  Tahn looked at Sutter, who had begun to weave now that he’d come to a full stop. “Get him a chair.”

  The healer scooted a seat up behind Sutter, who sat heavily.

  Tahn considered what to say. He didn’t think he had time to dissemble. He didn’t know what was at work in his friend’s body, and caution might kill him.

  Tahn knelt to be close enough to speak low and still be heard. “We were attacked by Bar’dyn. One hit my friend in the back with a spiked ball. I pulled the ball free, but in the last several hours his speech is slurring, his eyes are heavy, and his balance is off. I think he’s been poisoned.”

  The short fellow buried his face in his stubby fingers. “The first fee of the night and this is it? What did I do to deserve you?” He stabbed a finger into Tahn’s chest and immediately went back to his lockbox. He produced a key from inside his shirt, opened the box, and drew out Tahn’s money. Stumping back, he lifted Tahn’s palm with one hand and slammed the coins into it. “I can’t help you!”

  Tahn stared, slack-jawed. “Can’t? My friend is sick. What do I do?”

  The diminutive fellow went back to his chair to resume his vigil. “He’s got Quiet poison in him. You need a healer from the Bourne. Good luck.”

  Tahn’s ire began to stir. “But I don’t know where to find one. Ca
n’t you do something?” He stood, feeling for the first time the kind of righteous anger he remembered of his father. Things had grown serious, and now so was he.

  The small man seemed to hear it, too. He puffed air from his wide nostrils. “The tenendra. They have a tent of low ones at the far end. They say there’s a creature from the Bourne caged inside. Good luck.”

  With some difficulty, Tahn got Sutter to his feet, and the two stumbled back into the street. The peaks of the several tents to the north glowed like beacons and lured Squim residents to come and pay the admission fee. Tahn and Sutter followed the crowds, which all seemed to stream in the same direction. The closer they got to the the brightly lit tents, the stronger many sweet smells wafted on the air: honey, molasses, and flower-nectar creams. But so, too, did the acrid smell of people long without a bath, massed together for whatever entertainment the tenendra brought to this shady town.

  “There,” Sutter said, getting Tahn’s attention.

  They rounded the last large building near the end of town and stopped at the massive tent that seemed to swell before them. It rose to at least the height of Hambley’s Fieldstone. Ropes the thickness of Tahn’s arm anchored to great iron stakes, holding the tent in place. Great swaths of color ran in wide stripes to the peak—red, green, yellow, blue, violet. Straw had been laid all about, but in the heat, there was no mud to cover, so chaff rose under the hundreds of feet that trampled it, filling the air with the smell of a dry field.

  Along the perimeter of the tents, carts filled with honey-glazed fruit, sugar wines, and rolled flat-cakes filled with berries and dusted with powdered sugars were surrounded by men, women, and children all clamoring for a taste. Torches blazed all around the tents, casting rope shadows and the occasional figure of a man upon the outer canvas, while the light from within bobbed and shifted with the movement of talking heads and arms raised in applause. Excitement carried Tahn along with the flow of the crowd. Roars of approval erupted from the tent at frequent intervals, often followed by gales of laughter. Outside, those still standing in line for their food looked anxious to gain admittance to the tents and join those inside before whatever entertainment within came to an end.

  The tide of the throng took them around the first tent. Two more tents rose against the darkness like enormous, pregnant light-flies. One of these glowed a peerless aqua blue color; the other was covered with sketches of faces in exaggerated expressions of pleasure, pain, joviality, sadness, anger, and contentment. Booths were erected close to each tent, others in the thoroughfare that ran between them. The intoxicating smells of food and drink wafted over the crowd like an invisible cloud.

  Several booths were manned by men and women who hollered the merits of one game or another. Tahn passed one woman wearing an eye patch who barked about the ease of tossing a small dart through a hole in a plank of wood set fifteen feet from the front counter of her stand.

  Farther on to the right stood three more tents like the first, all in a row. But on the left, out of the way, sat a long, square, dimly illuminated tent. Tahn thought he detected a more acrid smell from that direction.

  No one stood in line there.

  This had to be the tent of the low ones, with a creature from the Bourne.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  A Songbox

  “Don’t be alarmed, Anais,” the gentleman said.

  His long white hair was drawn back in a ponytail. Clear blue eyes shone beneath thick white brows, and the clean scents of sandalwood and oak leaves seemed to emanate from him. He sat with his elbows on his knees and his fingers laced, smiling paternally at her across the fire.

  “Who are you?” Wendra asked, looking around for Penit. Perhaps this was the help the boy had brought back with him.

  “Your friend,” the man said. “What else would you have me be?”

  Wendra shook her head and tried to push herself up. She collapsed quickly from the effort.

  “Do not exert yourself,” the old man said. “I will do you no harm, and you must conserve your strength.” He took a piece of wood from the nearby pile and stirred the coals with it before tossing it into the flames. “It is a joyous sound, is it not?”

  Wendra looked at him, confused. “What sound?”

  “The fire.” He closed his eyes. “If you close your eyes it sounds like the wind filling a sail, the rush of water over a falls. Yet it is both gentler than these and stronger.” He smiled with his eyes shut. “The life of the wood is consumed, reborn into flame and warmth. The force that gives the tree its form, still deep within the wood long after it ceases to grow, is offered up in a bright flame that warms our meals and soothes our flesh.”

  Wendra licked her cracked lips, but said nothing.

  “It is an old song, older than the races, and one they’ve forgotten.” He opened his eyes. “Its power is still harnessed, but the sacrifice of the touchable becoming untouchable is no longer appreciated. The song is no longer sung.” He did not speak reproachfully, and the same kindly smile remained on his lips. “This is the way of things,” he concluded, and rested his gentle eyes on Wendra.

  “What has this to do with me?” she asked. “How does this help me? Heal my wound?” Her voice trembled as panic closed in upon her. The man was not really there, and he could not assist her. She was having fever visions, death dreams. She remembered her dying father holding entire conversations with the empty chair that sat beside his bed. Tears welled in her eyes. Distantly, the tune of her box continued to chime.

  “Only you can decide what it has to do with you, Wendra, how it will help you.” He looked down at his hands, then held them up without unlacing his fingers. “What is their song?”

  “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, an
d 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.”