When the water in the pot was warm, Daven gently washed the stranger’s face, limbs, and chest before rolling him over to cleanse his back. He knew that he’d find runes tattooed there, but it didn’t lessen his unease at the sight of them. The text they inscribed was both holy and secret. A Sarf couldn’t read it, and uncovered the tattoos only for his Bearer, the holy one who was his master. Daven hadn’t seen such inscriptions for more than eighteen winters. The runes tattooed on his Sarf—the same Sarf who had tried to kill him—were minimal compared to the extensive text needled on the stranger’s back.
Better than anyone, Daven knew he shouldn’t gaze at the marks. He was no longer a Bearer, and the unconscious man wasn’t his Sarf. Moreover, Daven felt unworthy. He had turned his back on Karm. His Sarf had every right to slay him. Sometimes Daven wished that he had. Yet, worthy or not, the former Bearer felt drawn to the runes, and the impulse to read them quickly became irresistible. With trembling fingers, he reached out and brushed the archaic letters that transcribed an ancient language.
With so much time having passed since Daven had last read such a text, he struggled to decipher it. It didn’t read like a narrative, for the Seers who made such marks wrote puzzles for which life provided the missing pieces. Their guidance wasn’t meant for the Sarf but for his Bearer, and Daven felt like a sneak thief rummaging through another’s most private possessions. He rummaged nevertheless, enthralled by what he discovered.
It was nearly dawn when Daven tore himself away from the runes. He dressed the stranger in a clean tunic and laid him on the mat that served as his bed. By then, he was convinced that Karm had sent the Sarf, not to slay him but to redeem him. His eyes teared at the notion of it. Karm’s truly the Goddess of Compassion, he thought. However, the wonder of his redemption paled compared to a greater marvel. The runes had only hinted at it, yet those hints had stirred Daven to the core. He felt both energized and profoundly anxious. Light and darkness will soon contend over the world’s fate. The outcome was far from certain, but the runes said that he had a role in the struggle. Daven resolved to do his utmost to fulfill it. He worried that he might fail, for there was much he didn’t understand, despite numerous readings of the text.
Daven peered outside. The rain had stopped. The day promised to be a fair one, and he strolled out his door to witness its dawn. As Daven watched the eastern sky brighten and turn rosy, his thoughts returned to the enigmatic text on the Sarf’s back. One name was woven throughout, and he didn’t even know if it was that of a man or a woman. His only certainty was that much depended on someone named Yim.
THREE
WHILE DAVEN waited for the sun to rise, Roarc poled his reed boat along a narrow waterway that lay far to the north. The channel’s tea-colored water was hemmed by reeds so tall they could have served as walls in a maze. Having lived his entire life in the Grey Fens, Roarc had spent nearly fifty winters navigating its tangled waters; yet even he got lost sometimes. He was in no danger of that at the moment, for his destination was his home. It was a limestone outcropping that fensfolk call a “hite.” It jutted like a tiny mountaintop from the bog. Though in plain sight, reaching it by boat required threading a complicated course, which the fensman did with the assurance of long familiarity.
By Roarc’s bare feet lay the night’s takings from the traps, several dozen small fish. Additionally, there was a pair of traps that needed repair. Woven from reeds, they resembled spherical baskets with openings in the shape of inverted cones. Mending and making fish traps was a task for his wife, Rappali. She was skilled at reedwork, while Roarc—who was fifteen winters her senior—had stiffened fingers.
The waterway ended a fair distance from the hite. Roarc pulled his craft onto a sodden bank, took his catch and the fish traps, and followed a path to his home. The well-worn trail was easy to follow, but like the waterway, its route was irregular, for firm ground was rare in the fens. Much of the bog’s lush plant life grew on floating mats of decayed vegetation that gave way when trod upon. A careless step could get one soaked or worse, so Roarc stuck to the path. When he reached the hite, the ground became stony and solid. Soon he was ascending the steep-sided outcropping to reach his home.
From the pathway he had a commanding view of the fens, and Roarc paused to observe the sunrise. To the north, about half a morning’s journey by boat, lay the wide Turgen River. It invaded the fens by a maze of narrow waterways that petered out near Tararc Hite, the home of Roarc and his nearest kin. To the south were the fens proper. From where the fensman stood, it seemed a vast and lush prairie, not a treacherous, reedy bog. Scattered about the fens were thousands of limestone outcroppings. They came in all sizes. Some were no bigger than boulders, while a few looked like little mountains, complete with forests growing on their sides. Many, like Tararc Hite, were inhabited.
Roarc’s home had been chiseled into the southern slope of the hite about halfway to its summit. Ten paces deep, it was sizable by fens standards, for many generations of Roarc’s family had enlarged it. The front of the cavity was walled off with a stone facade that featured an ancient wooden door and a chimney flanked by two shuttered windows. The homes of Roarc’s younger brothers, which lay elsewhere on the hite, were less grand and more cramped. When Roarc turned the bend, he saw Rappali already at work tilling the terraced field by the dwelling’s entrance. He was pleased to see that. He was less pleased to see a goat tied near his doorway.
Rappali seemed to have anticipated Roarc’s reaction, for she set down her mattock and greeted him with more good cheer than usual. “Good morn, husband. ’Tis a fine night’s catch ya brought.”
Roarc frowned. “I see tha goat girl came.”
“Aye, last eve.”
“That girl lacks sense. All tha way from Far Hite in tha eve. Tha fens will swallow her yet!”
“Yim’s no girl,” replied Rappali, “so why call her one? Her lad’s almost as old as our Telk, ’bout seventeen winters by my reckoning.”
“I name her girl ’cause she looks and acts like one. Raising a lad without a man! ’Tisn’t fitting!”
“Just ’cause she refused yar brother—”
“And every other fensman who asked her. A lad needs a man ta guide him. Then he’d know how ta slaughter a goat.”
“Ya know full well why he doesn’t know,” said Rappali, “and ’tisn’t ’cause Yim lacks a husband.”
“A lad should see blood. He’s being raised unnatural. Why, I’m part minded ta send tha goat back.”
“Fine. Then ya can send back tha cheese that she brought for our trouble. She promised us a hind quarter as well.”
“ ’Tis only an old milked-out doe.”
“ ’Tis dear ta her, poor thing.”
“Why take her side?” asked Roarc. “She’s an outsider. Mayhap a bogspit.”
“Pah on that! Tha Mother guided her here.”
“Tha healwife thinks different.”
“That’s ’cause Yim knows more ’bout birthing babes than she.” Then Rappali put on her most conciliatory face. “Please, husband, enjoy Yim’s cheese and kill tha goat for her. She’s coming back this eve.”
Roarc thought of Yim’s cheese, which was renowned for its delicate flavor, and relented. Nevertheless, he made a show of deliberating and frowned when he spoke. “I’ll slaughter and butcher tha goat after morn’s rest,” he said. He set down the basket of fish and the damaged traps. “Tend ta these afore I rise.” Then he entered his home to sleep awhile.
Rappali grabbed the basket of fish and walked down to the bog to clean them. There she could also cut the reeds to mend the traps. She would have done both without being told and regarded her husband’s insistence that she accomplish the chores before he rose as face-saving bluster. Roarc disliked slaughtering Yim’s goats. The task didn’t bother him; it was for whom he did it. Roarc wasn’t fond of Yim, and his wife’s friendship with her annoyed him.
Rappali assumed that her husband disliked Yim because she was an outsider. Fensfolk ha
d little contact with the outside world and distrusted it. Sons who joined the ships that plied the Turgen almost never returned, and the few that did always seemed changed beyond recognition. Yim’s sudden appearance had been the subject of gossip for many winters. There were folk who actually believed she was a bogspit, a being born from the muck in the bog. Such creatures were supposed to have bog water in their veins and were burned by real blood. That was said to be the reason why Yim wouldn’t slaughter her animals.
Rappali knew Yim’s blood was as red as anyone’s, for she had found Yim just after she had given birth. Unconscious and covered in muck, Yim had looked dead. Yet she recovered, and Rappali admired how Yim had made a life for herself. Settling on isolated Far Hite with her newborn son and three goats loaned by Rappali’s mother, she had raised a dairy herd and carved a life for herself and her child. Yim’s cheese was the best in the Grey Fens, relished even by those who claimed witchcraft was used in its making.
Rappali believed Yim’s story that war had driven her to the fens, where she could honor her oath to her dying husband that their child would never witness bloodshed. Rappali thought that Yim went too far in fulfilling that oath, but she never doubted her sincerity. Yim had experienced war, and her tales of its atrocities were chilling. After what she’s seen, thought Rappali, I don’t blame her not wishing ta kill even a goat.
Upon reaching the water’s edge, Rappali began cleaning her husband’s catch. Most of the fish were hand sized, so without their heads and tails they were little more than morsels to dry for later use. As the fenswoman scaled and gutted the fish, she thought of the other source of contention with her husband—Yim’s son. Roarc was fond of the lad, but Froan unsettled Rappali.
Her reaction put Rappali in the minority, for most folk thought well of Froan. Telk, Rappali’s only son, hung on Froan’s every word, although Telk was older and larger than his friend. He wasn’t alone in this; Froan had a knack for getting his way. Rappali found the ease with which he bent folk to his favor an unnatural trait. She believed it had something to do with his eyes. She had noticed them on the day he was born. The pale tan irises made the pupils seem all the more piercing. To her, they likened to twin holes into which one might fall and get trapped. She never spoke of this notion, for it seemed silly to fear a boy’s gaze. Yet that fear had grown stronger over time. She sometimes thought that Yim felt it also.
FOUR
HONUS WOKE slowly, drifting into consciousness as one emerges from a fog. When he opened his eyes, he took in little of what he saw. He had become accustomed to waking in strange places, and even the fact that he was clean and freshly clothed made little impression on him. His belly was empty, but he was oblivious of that. The emptiness that gnawed at him was of a deeper nature and one that the living world couldn’t ease. Honus slowly pulled himself into a sitting position, crossed his legs, and closed his eyes so he might trance and find some happy memory on the Dark Path.
That endeavor was foiled by a sudden sharp pain on his upper thigh. Honus tried to disregard it, but he felt a second pain and then a third. He opened his eyes and noticed for the first time that another man was in the room. He sat close by. The man had a full white beard and a matching tangle of hair. He wore a shabby robe and held a stick. Certain that the man had hit him with the stick, Honus tried to grab it. His hand grasped only air.
The stranger grinned. “Pretty slow for a Sarf.”
Though it was obvious, it only then dawned on Honus that his disguise was gone. “I’m no Sarf.”
“Your face says otherwise.”
“My tattoos don’t mark service to the goddess,” replied Honus, his voice low and cold. “They display my hate for her.”
“Your runes tell a different tale.”
“A Sarf’s runes may not be seen!”
The stranger smiled. “But, as you said, you’re no Sarf. Besides, I needed diversion while I scrubbed your back.”
Honus stared into the man’s eyes, trying to discern the truth behind what he said. But as with his other skills, his powers of perception had diminished. He discerned only what was readily apparent; that the man was old, poor, and had a kindly face.
“I’ve heard of your affliction,” said the man, “but so few can trance, I’ve never encountered it before. Yet I’m certain your chill comes not from this world.”
“You speak nonsense.”
“You know I don’t,” asserted the man. “You crave the dead’s memories like a drunkard craves ale. It’s made you squander your life on the Dark Path.”
“So? It’s my life.”
“Your life’s Karm’s gift and therefore precious.”
“It’s a false gift that suits only the giver’s ends,” replied Honus. “Don’t speak of my tormentor.”
“Karm loves you.”
“Ha! A lie to beguile the naive. You don’t know my life.”
“I do in part,” replied the man. “It’s inscribed in your runes.”
“So my suffering was foreordained,” said Honus, his voice heavy with bitterness. “I’m not surprised. But who are you to meddle? If you’ve the skill to read my runes, then you must know it’s sacrilege.”
Daven met the Sarf’s aggressive stare with a mild look. The man on his sleeping mat was nearly dead; yet Daven was wary. He knew all too well how dangerous such men could be. Thus he replied honestly to the Sarf’s remark. “It’s not the first sacrilege I’ve committed and certainly not the gravest. Like you, I turned my back on Karm.”
“Then you’re wiser than I thought,” replied the Sarf. “Now let me be.”
Daven knew it would be the prudent thing to do, but he felt charged to take a different course. Judging from the Sarf’s conversation, he seemed to have retained his wits even if he had turned away from the living world. If I’m to guide him back to it, he thought, I must do so carefully.
“Someone dumped you on my doorstep,” said Daven. “If they hadn’t, you’d no longer need to trance to roam the Dark Path.”
The man’s only reply was a grunt.
“When I unwrapped your face, I recalled your tattoos, though not you. Yet if memory serves, you were Theodus’s Sarf. What became of him?”
“Slain.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. He was a wise and virtuous man. It’s said the Bearer is the measure of the Sarf.” Daven bowed. “I’m honored by your presence.”
“Don’t be. I failed Theodus and …” The Sarf’s face darkened, and he grew silent.
Daven took a gamble and divulged a little of what he had learned from reading the Sarf’s runes. “You didn’t fail Yim.”
As soon as Daven spoke those words, he felt like a man who had pulled a stone from a wall and caused it to crumble. The Sarf’s aloof facade fell, spilling anguish over his features. Daven saw the depths of the man’s despair and knew that Yim was the key to understanding it. “Who was Yim?”
“She was my Bearer, and …” The Sarf paused as he struggled to control his voice. “… and she was more than that.”
“She? Your Bearer was a woman?”
“Yes.”
“Women Bearers are rare. I thought I knew all of them.”
“Yim became my Bearer after the temple fell. Karm, herself, united us. Later, she strengthened that bond with love.” The Sarf’s eyes welled with tears. “Such love!” he said in a wistful tone. Then his voice hardened. “But it was only Karm’s ploy to use us, and when we fulfilled her need, she tore us apart forever!”
“And you still long for Yim?”
“For seventeen winters! Now the only joy I feel comes from the memories of the dead.”
“Yet those memories aren’t yours,” said Daven, “and the heart isn’t eased by shadows.”
“They seem real enough for a moment, and during that moment I forget.”
The Sarf’s revelations gave meaning to some of the inscriptions on his back, causing Daven to consider which of his conclusions to reveal. Clearly, I must tell him something. The former Bea
rer chose his words carefully. “The goddess tore you asunder, but not forever.” He watched the Sarf’s face. A spark of animation briefly lit his forlorn eyes, but it quickly died. “I believe it’s my fate to prepare you for what lies ahead. Yim needs you.”
“My runes told you that?”
“They did.”
The Sarf was silent for a long while, and Daven had the impression that he was struggling with his feelings. At last, the tattooed man sighed and spoke. “I’m no use to her. I don’t know where she is, and I can’t even fend off an old man’s stick.”
“Don’t you want to help her?”
“Why ask pointless questions? What I want is unimportant.”
“So you’ll abandon her.”
The Sarf flushed. “Yim abandoned me!”
“Not willingly. Not without regret.”
“How could you know?”
“The runes.”
The Sarf grew so agitated that Daven feared for his life. “Oh, the callousness of Karm! And of you for abetting her!”
“Karm wants to help you, and my role is to assist her.”
The Sarf’s only response was to stare at Daven with disbelief. The pain and sorrow in the man’s tear-rimmed eyes deeply moved Daven, and he waited awhile before he spoke again. When he did, his voice was quiet and humble. “It would help if I knew your name.”
“Honus” was the whispered reply.
“I’m Daven. As you’ve probably guessed, I was once a Bearer.”
“Daven?” The name seemed to have some meaning for Honus, for he appeared to mull over it awhile. When he spoke at last, he seemed puzzled. “Was your Sarf named Gatt?”
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“I met him long ago. He said you had fallen.”
“He spoke truly in a manner. When folk turned against the goddess, I fled their wrath and became a hermit. But where did you meet Gatt?”
The Iron Palace Page 2
