by E. J. Godwin
“Just a feeling, Rennor. A choice of words here and there—like the other day when you didn’t use my second name. Everyone else does. And you’ve avoided every question about your supposed relationship with Telai.”
“If I’m so untrustworthy, then why am I here?”
“I’ve already told you,” Soren answered. “To keep you from blabbing about our mission. That doesn’t matter now with Gur’alyreiv close by, and I place little faith in your childish tales. State your true purpose and identity!”
“My name is Rennor!” he said, punctuating each word. “I’m here to help you reach your goal, to find the Broken Lor’yentré at Graxmoar. Nothing has changed.”
The point of the sword moved to his throat, and Rennor tensed. Soren grinned devilishly. “See, Caleb Stenger, how soon he abandons his noble quest to increase our knowledge? You will answer my question truthfully, stranger, and now.”
A long minute passed. Moisture slowly rimmed the younger man’s eyes, as if he were about to commit some act of betrayal. “Damn you and your eternal suspicions!” he breathed. He looked from one to the other. “I came here to correct a mistake made a long time ago—a very foolish mistake.”
Soren waited, then said, “You only deepen the mystery about yourself.”
Rennor spread his hands to either side. “The only way I can prove myself is if you let me help you.”
“Your burden, not mine.”
Tears now coursed down Rennor’s cheeks. Caleb squirmed, uncomfortable with the man’s grief, as if it were somehow tied to his own.
All this while Warren sat with his mouth open, like a child amazed at the hypocrisy of adult arguments. Caleb knew better. His son would never interact in a meaningful way with these people, much less learn their language. And even if he could, how long would it last? For nine years, if even that long?
“Perhaps we should give him another chance, Soren.”
The Master Raén shook his head. “May Etrenga rise from the dead and strike me down if I allow this man anywhere near Graxmoar.”
Rennor seemed to be recovering, a familiar look of impatience kindling his red-rimmed eyes. “What is it you’re so worried about?”
“I don’t know. Whatever it is, you want it too much.”
An inexplicable spasm twisted Rennor’s face. “Soren, please put your sword away. You have my promise not to betray you or any of your people.”
Soren appeared to waver for a moment, his blade withdrawing a little. Then his expression hardened. “No. I’ve lived too long as a Raén not to recognize the smell of danger.”
“There is no danger here! My interest is purely academic. There’s never been any compelling evidence concerning the powers of either the First or the Second Lor’yentré. It’s probably nothing more than a myth!”
The words were out before Caleb could stop them. “I hope not.”
Soren turned his head. “What?”
The sword drifted away from Rennor, and Caleb froze.
“Well?” urged the Master Raén. “You said I hope not. What did you mean by that?”
Caleb tried to shrug convincingly. “You know how badly I want to restore my reputation.”
“Finding Kseleksten is one thing. Believing in its powers is another. You’ve been casting doubts on the Prophecy ever since we left Udan. Now you’ve changed your mind? Explain yourself!”
Caleb felt a strange urge to confess, but a cautious instinct held him back. “I read somewhere that not all of the powers of the Lor’yentréi are evil.”
“How so?”
“You should know. You’re familiar with Orand’s writings.”
“The writings of Orand are many. I don’t spend all my time in Gerentesk!” Caleb gave no response to this, and Soren’s fingers twitched on the hilt of his sword. “Do your reasons to find Kseleksten have anything—anything at all—to do with the Oath?”
Caleb faced him squarely. “Of course they do. I’ve spent almost three weeks with the Master Raén of Ada. I understand the Oath a little better every day.” He shifted his gaze to the fire. “But I found a passage in Orand’s book about the healing powers of the Lor’yentréi. My hope is that Warren will be cured by it someday.”
Silence fell. Finally he gathered the courage to raise his head, and found himself staring straight down the length of Soren’s Fetra.
The Master Raén struggled to find his voice. “You understand? You’ve read Besir Orand’iteé, and all the tales about our ancestors and the price they paid. How can you understand when you’ve placed some vain hope of healing above the peace and safety of Ada?” He bent his reddened face as if unwilling to look upon him. “May you bear the brunt of the evil to come, Caleb Stenger!”
With a jerk he drew back his sword. Caleb sat rooted to the ground.
He might have lost his head had it not been for Warren. The boy shouted and threw himself across his father, terrified by the sight of his impending death.
It was enough to freeze Soren right at the beginning of his stroke. As Caleb forced Warren away the old Raén stood aghast, shocked by his own reckless fury. Then Rennor leaped up and slammed him to the ground.
Caleb watched in utter disbelief as they wrestled back and forth, kicking up chunks of sod and scattering blankets and other items all over the campsite. Rennor was clearly getting the worst of it, grunting and gasping from the effects of a hardened soldier’s wiry strength. Then Soren barely missed slicing into the man with a sweep of his blade, and Caleb shot to his feet.
“Stop, stop!” he bellowed, uselessly in English. He dived in and tried to separate them without being slashed or impaled himself, and eventually seized the hilt of Soren’s sword.
Caleb stared into the older man’s contorted face. “Stop this madness!” he shouted in the correct language, and to his surprise it worked. Soren withdrew and jumped to a stand, still ready for more, it seemed, while Rennor lay groaning at their feet.
A sudden fury overwhelmed Caleb, sweeping away any pretense of subservience. “Soren, you are a fool, and the most hot-headed and stubborn man I’ve ever met! If you won’t help me, and keep a tight rein on that temper of yours, then go back to Ekendoré!” he cried, swinging his arm east. “I have no use for anyone who places so little value on another man’s life.”
Soren stood fast, weapon in hand, chest heaving. His face writhed in almost unbearable indecision. Caleb felt sure he would walk over to his horse and ride off into the night, never to return. Rennor came to a slow stand, rubbing his limbs; firelight glistened off the sweat on his forehead.
They stood facing each other, a standoff which Caleb feared might erupt at any second and destroy his one chance of reaching Graxmoar. Then, before Caleb could stop him, Warren walked straight up to Soren and hugged him with all his might.
The change in the weathered old face was immediate—from anger to helplessness. In other circumstances Caleb would have laughed. Here was a man fully dedicated to the Oath, and ready in an instant to avenge it with his life; yet the guileless affection of a child rendered him powerless.
Soren placed a tentative hand on Warren’s tousled locks. “Garda has often said my anger makes a fool of me. But she also knows when it’s justified.” He shot a piercing stare at Caleb. “In my eyes, at this moment, you are no longer worthy to be a Raén. But to reject or abandon you out here would only repeat my father’s mistake. Whatever fate awaits Ada, good or evil, one day you will stand before the Council again to be Judged.”
Caleb was sorely tempted to say he had already seen plenty of that sort of thing. “Fair enough. But know this: I plan to reach Graxmoar before then, on my own if I have to … ”
His voice faltered. He had never told anyone about Warren’s short lifespan, not even Telai. Now the time had come. But it surprised him how difficult it was, as if the mere act of saying it out loud would seal the boy’s fate.
“He’s got less than ten years to live, Soren. It’s the only hope I’ve got."
A long silen
ce passed. Soren gently detached himself from the boy, and sheathed his sword.
Caleb drew a breath, the first one in minutes, as it seemed. “You’ll stay with us?”
It was more a plea than a question. Yet Soren showed no trace of remorse or sympathy. “For now. I’ll make no more accusations, ask no more questions until I bring what we discover at Graxmoar to the Overseer. Just don’t count on her being any more forgiving than I am!”
He turned to organize the belongings scattered by the fight, clearly finished with the discussion. A keen sense of loss settled into Caleb’s heart, and he wondered if he would ever share the old man’s caustic friendship again.
18
Tnestiri
There is nothing more humbling than the moment you
discover how fragile your life is, or how fleeting.
- Urman of Old
CHILLED DROPS of rain spattered on the fire’s dead ashes, and the members of the little party came to life.
Caleb wrapped his coat tight as they rode cheerlessly to the west. He soon realized that Soren was right: his dark mood the night before had been no coincidence. Despair crept across the fields and wormed its way into his thoughts, every passing mile longer than the one before.
Soren rode in silence, as if in a hopeless venture, while Warren sat hunched, his head bowed. Only Rennor seemed unaffected, even eager to face the mounting threat of Gur’alyreiv. Caleb felt as though he had lost every friend he ever had—which might not be far from the truth, he reflected sadly.
He peered through the mist, dreading the first sign of the forest. Suddenly he had trouble believing his own eyes. What he had taken for distant, pine-clad hills were not hills at all, but a towering wall of trees running north and south into the rain-shrouded distance. The fields and scattered beeches ended, and the entire party came to a halt—not of their own free will, but in response to a palpable resistance, as if one more step would shred their last hope.
A cold sweat broke out on their faces. Their horses moved about skittishly, and Caleb barely had the presence of mind to control his own.
But there was no turning back, not without a fight at least. Gripping the reins, Soren urged his horse forward with a firm kick. Tellahur was a battle-hardened horse, loyal to her master for many years, but this was much to ask. She neighed and snorted in protest, rearing or bucking high in an attempt to unseat her rider. Soren clamped his knees and held on tight.
Finally, step after painful step, both man and horse reached the forest edge. He stopped and turned to face the others, a dark gray form suddenly composed and calm between the giant roots of the trees. Tellahur tossed her head, calm and obedient.
Soren had already advised the others to attempt the barrier one at a time, and after a brief hesitation, Rennor moved forward. It was soon obvious that he was not as experienced a rider as the Master Raén. The horse kept turning sharply to canter away from the forest, forcing Rennor to bring it to an awkward stop with a hard jerk on the reins. Indeed, he appeared to have more trouble with his horse than he did Gur’alyreiv. But he made progress—excruciatingly slow progress—until at last he waited beside Soren, leaning heavily on the saddle.
Caleb Stenger sat alone. His companions beckoned, but there was no sound, no voices. It was as if they had stepped into another time and place. He waited, and still waited, while Warren trembled under the strong grip of his arms.
At last he dug in his heels and started forward. Though he was a better horseman than Rennor, he soon discovered an unforeseen difficulty: the packhorse. With both animals bent on escape Caleb could barely make any progress, a slow, painful succession of gains and losses like a weary man up a hill of sand. The packhorse’s lead rope kept twisting around, threatening to unseat him, or pulled back so hard that his own horse reared high, whinnying loudly. All the while the power of Gur’alyreiv strengthened, a fear so penetrating that he felt sure, even if he turned and fled far away, that he would never be completely free of it again.
Warren, fortunately, had the sense to hang on tight even amid his screams, for his father had no arms to spare. Only the sight of his friends, unheard yet beckoning in encouragement, kept Caleb from abandoning the struggle. Soon his breath came in ragged rasps, and his joints and muscles ached from the continual strain. The pain of his struggle mounted higher, and yet higher—until right before the edge of the woods both horses reared back, and he nearly lost everything: his seat, his son, and his courage.
An arm reached out of nowhere and snatched the lead rope from his hands. Caleb glanced beside him. The Master Raén, his teeth clenched and the cords of his neck standing out, fought to control both Tellahur and the packhorse. Caleb, exhausted, used what strength he had left to force his own horse over the remaining distance.
Then it was over. The fear and despair vanished, a change so abrupt that it brought a pounding ache to his head. Sound returned; he heard his companions’ voices, and the soft neigh of their horses. Warren wept in the sudden relief. Caleb’s laboring heart slowed, and he flexed his aching hands.
He exchanged glances with Soren, who sat recovering from the effort. “You weren’t kidding, were you?” Caleb said. He wrapped his arms about his son. “It’s all right now, Warren. It’s over.”
Rennor wore a curious, thoughtful expression. “Is he all right?”
“I think so. But I sure hope we won’t have to go through that again on the other side.”
Soren wore a puzzled look as he gazed out over the open fields. “I don’t know. No one has ever survived a return journey to say. Your chief difficulty was with the packhorse—which I should have thought of ahead of time, by the way.”
“Forget it, I didn’t think of it either. But it looks like Rennor’s story is pretty accurate, at least so far.”
“Perhaps,” Soren said. “But we should travel as far away from this as we can today.”
They rode off at once. The light of the somber sky, and all sound of wind and rain, soon faded behind them. The trees towered over their heads like living monoliths in an ancient hall, the first of their branches far above, monstrous in the gloom. Caleb felt his nape prickle. He could not shake a suspicion that they were intruding upon a vast, ancient conclave, a realm of voiceless gods determining the fate of these puny mortals.
Yet what unnerved him the most was his son. Warren kept turning his head from side to side, peering intensely into each tree as if reading secrets from deep inside. Soren noticed it as well, his suspicion obvious as he glanced back now and then. Caleb soon told Warren to stop.
There was no undergrowth to speak of, and they made decent progress as the day wore on. The rain gradually tapered off, until evening fell with a darkness so sudden and complete as to squelch all thoughts of riding any farther. A wealth of huge pine cones, some bigger than a man’s head, provided easy kindling for a fire. They piled on a ready supply of dead branches to drive away the murk and the damp.
The crackle and snap of bright flames cheered them, but Warren remained persistent in his fascination with the trees. Again and again he would amble over to one of the massive trunks to resume his odd behavior, and each time Caleb sharply ordered him back to the fire. Soren ignored it, perhaps deliberately so. They ate their meal in silence, the bitter fight of the previous evening hanging over them like a cloud; Rennor sat away from the others, sullen and unresponsive. Afterward they let the fire burn low.
As the lonely calls of a distant owl echoed through the woods, Caleb sank into a troubled sleep. He dreamed again, but this time it had nothing to do with Warren or the ship. Indistinct at first, in time the images sharpened, and he saw what he might have expected, trees. But they undulated back and forth, a bizarre, hypnotic movement like the masts of giant ships riding vast swells in the ocean. They slowed, and slowed still further, until all motion ceased.
At the base of a tree, dwarfed to almost nothingness by its size, a man lifted his arms as if in supplication. The towering monolith before it began to shrink, needles and
branches and bristling cones retreating through the countless years. Roots like the limbs of giants sank into the earth and vanished. Soon the tree stood no higher than a tall house, then a healthy sapling, then a seedling.
A piercing scream rent the night as the last curled frond sank into the soil.
“Caleb Stenger—damn your cursed dreams!”
He opened his yes. Soren crouched near, his age-lined skin and long white hair reddened by the nearby light of coals; resinous smoke curled up from a few large cones and pieces of bark he had thrown on the fire. Warren sat to one side, staring at his father as if he were a madman.
Caleb sat up and ran a hand over his sweat-soaked face. “I’m sorry,” he gasped.
Soren studied him. “Perhaps we should have waited a little longer before attempting this.”
A sudden flame drove away the dark, restoring Caleb’s wits. “I’ll be all right.”
The snap of a twig caught their attention. Rennor was walking toward the firelight, carrying a small satchel in one hand and hoisting his pants up with the other. He stopped short at the others staring at him.
“Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” Soren answered slowly. “Where were you?”
Rennor threw down the satchel next to his other belongings. “I don’t believe this. I can’t even shit without your questioning my motives!” He sank to the ground and flung the blankets over himself, turning his back.
Soren shrugged. “We’ll start first light,” he said to Caleb. “Get more sleep, if you can—we’ve got a long ride ahead of us tomorrow.”
“Gur’alyreiv again?”
“Maybe. I’d rather we put this forest at our backs as soon as possible.”
Caleb nodded, and laid back down. The last thing he saw was Soren sitting alert near the fire, the yellow flames dancing in his eyes.
♦
No further visions disturbed his sleep until Soren woke him just before dawn. The momentary compassion the old Raén had displayed during the night was gone, his expression like stone, implacable. Warren showed no trace of his previous behavior. Caleb tried to put it out of his mind, telling himself that he was a victim of his own imagination.
