It reminded him there was another lunar eclipse in a few short days.
“We’re not letting this happen again!” He slammed a fist down on the notation for the Battle of the Scar. “Not again.” He was overtired, but it wouldn’t have changed his feelings about it. Not one jot.
Seelia, Myles, and Tetcha gathered close, adjusting texts from their respective colleges, where the annalists had used chronological systems best suited to their lines of inquiry. A master map began to take shape.
Tahn’s heart pounded; his hands shook. He and Rithy did this awful dance back and forth across the history of Aeshau Vaal, until they’d reached the end of the time-map and almanacs.
“This is good,” Seelia conceded, “but you’re going to need to couple all this with the demonstrable models we built.”
Tahn tapped his lip in a good-natured affectation of thoughtfulness. “You’re right. Any ideas?”
Seelia stared at the maps for several long moments. Almost comically, her eyes widened and her mouth fell slightly open. “What if this Resonance you’re proposing is more fundamental even than magnetism?”
He and the young physicist shared a long look, as though they could read each other’s thoughts. “Let’s pull it all together,” he said eagerly. “I think we’re going to be ready for the physicists.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Contrarians
That for which you have no words is infinitely more powerful than that for which you do. This is as true of hate as it is of love.
—The first principle of ineffability, established as a model for irrational thought, Estem Salo
Once, the Vaults had been a much simpler structure, smaller. But that had been long ago. Today, they were a sprawl of buildings, many of them—though not all—interconnected. But each was devoted to the education and training of those who wished to become Sheason. In form and function, they resembled the colleges of the major cities, but were larger, and not as crowded. That, and the regimen of study went well beyond rigorous.
Thaelon strode through the Vault halls this morning, moving quickly on his way from the morning’s first trials. He’d just left a young woman who he’d had to divest of her Sheason authority. A promising young woman. Gods, he was tired of this. And at her trial she’d explained how much of her opinion had been formed in the classes of … Exemplar Hanry.
So Thaelon had no time to enjoy the scents of ash and oak and old granite stone. Nor the great naves, or long history and purpose of the Vaults. He scarcely even noticed passing Sualen—students so far only allowed to pursue Knowledge, and not yet Influence—who offered him a nod of acknowledgment as he hurried past. Instead he rushed to a classroom where they would be exploring Influence in light of what was effable and what was ineffable—that which could be expressed in words, and that which could not.
He arrived, eager and angry. He pushed through a set of solid, well-worn oak doors into a small theater-style room. Here were twenty students listening to Sheason Hanry in a flourish of exposition on the topic of contrariness.
Thaelon managed a smile when the students rose to their feet in greeting.
Exemplar Hanry continued to ramble a moment, his eyes currently scanning talking points from the notes he kept atop the central lectern. The subtle change in silence—fewer bits of graphite furiously taking notes—brought his attention up to his standing students. He followed their gaze to Thaelon, and bowed slightly to his Randeur in acknowledgment and deference.
“My apologies for the intrusion,” Thaelon offered cordially.
“No apology necessary,” Hanry replied a bit tersely.
“I’d like to hear what’s being taught here.” Thaelon looked back at the students. “And I’d like to address the class.”
Hanry paused a long moment. “I have a thought,” he said. “Since this class is on the topic of contrariness, why don’t you and I teach it together. Should lend itself to the topic.”
Thaelon took a slow breath, and nodded.
Hanry gathered his notes, pivoted on the balls of his feet like a soldier walking a sentry line, and proceeded in a slumped shuffle to a lectern on the far side of the floor. Once situated, he raised a hand, inviting Thaelon to take his position at the rightmost lectern at the front of the class. They’d be on opposite sides of the room—very symmetrical.
The slightest of grins lit Hanry’s face. Thaelon guessed it was because the exemplar couldn’t wait for what would follow—Hanry was known for his antagonism. The man was the perfect teacher on the principle of contrariness.
Hanry cleared his throat to gather the collective attention of his students. “I will review, so that those of you awed by the presence of our Randeur might refocus yourselves and benefit from today’s practical demonstration.
“Today we explore contrariness. For the dullards among you, it falls in the domain of Influence. And in our pedagogy, Influence comes after Knowledge. Since you’re here with us today, you’ve all mastered basic logic and knowledge, which includes the study of that which is arguable.”
Thaelon took his place behind the lectern on the far right of the room.
“It takes time, however, to become an effective rhetorician; language has nuances. Especially when it comes to … disagreement.” Hanry grinned again, making a bad job of concealing his glee.
“Understand, mind you,” Hanry was quick to add, “what we’re talking about here is the coupling of the Will with your words in order to give them the power of their meaning and your intention—”
“That’s right,” Thaelon said, cutting in. “And what you intend, once you are Sheason, will be guided by your oath.”
Hanry cleared his throat. “The crux of it, however, returns us to where we began before our Randeur interru—joined us. Anyone remember what that might be?” His voice lilted upward in a rising tone of mild condescension.
Thaelon took it upon himself to answer. “It was surely the difference between what is effable and what is ineffable.”
Hanry’s wicked grin faltered briefly. “Of course you know, my fellow, but I was hoping one of my students here could tell us.”
Thaelon surveyed the group. “You all knew the answer, right?”
A spate of nervous laughter rose and quickly fell, silenced by a stern look from their instructor. Hanry then lowered his eyes to his lectern. The silence continued for quite some time while the man reviewed his notes. Finally, he cleared his throat; more, Thaelon believed, as the affectation of an orator than from any real need.
“The Principle of Influence—which is to say, our use of the Will—has many tracks of study. Among these is”—Hanry looked grumpily over at Thaelon—“effability and ineffability. This is nothing more or less than what can and cannot be expressed through written or spoken words.”
A middle-aged woman in the front row hesitantly raised her hand. “Exemplar?”
Hanry waved for the woman to speak her question.
Tentatively, the woman asked, “So, ineffability means that even explicit language is sometimes insufficient to express what we mean?”
Thaelon raised a hand to stop Hanry from answering. He rounded his own lectern and surveyed the many students in the small theater. When he did, the importance of these classes struck him. Not contrariness, in particular, but all classes being taught by any who opposed the trials. The dissenters weren’t standing idle. Particularly those who hadn’t had their trial yet. These classrooms were being used to guide and shape intentions … intentions of people just like the young woman he’d just come from divesting. Thaelon didn’t know for certain yet if Hanry was part of this, but he felt it as deeply as anything he ever had. In a way, trials were starting in classrooms like this one.
How many future Sheason might he lose to evangelists working their personal philosophies in these rooms? How many would he have to divest? A third? Half? Nine-tenths?
He had to fight for them. He had to teach them the true nature of being Sheason. They needed to know the righ
t way of things. They mustn’t follow a selfish path.
“This, my young friends, is why we study what is ineffable,” Thaelon explained. “Some things are simply beyond our ability to adequately express. Like love, for instance. We will sometimes, however, need to give even these inexpressible things a voice. Do you understand?”
Most of the students nodded.
“You have no idea what you’re nodding about,” Hanry said, chiding his class. “But you will. One of the thought-forms in the track on effability and ineffability … is contrariness. My Randeur, shall we begin?”
“Contrariness?” Thaelon said. “I think you already have.”
His colleague paid the commentary no mind and set forth the topic for their debate. It hit Thaelon like a smith’s hammer in the chest. “How best does a Sheason serve? Is it by doing what he’s asked by others to do? Or does he render the aid he believes others most need?”
What they were about to do was not simply debate. This was contrariness. This was the use of the Will to express a point of view in order to change the heart and mind of another. Of all the topics a Sulivon would study on the Principle of Influence, this came last. A Sheason must understand it. But like realignment, he should never use it on someone else, because it violated the most fundamental belief a Sheason tried to defend: every person’s right to choose for themselves. Even now, Thaelon could feel doubt creeping into his mind, seeded there by the power of the Will. Hanry’s Will. Subtle, gentle whisperings that pulled at him.
“Hanry,” Thaelon said with warning.
Again the exemplar ignored him. “This is a relevant question, class, since we, as an order, face the question even now in the Trial of Intentions. And you’ve no doubt heard the rumors of the itinerant Vendanj, who cares little for the laws and institutions of the Eastland races, and chooses instead to follow the dictates of his own conscience when it comes to serving others.”
“Service,” Thaelon broke in, fighting back, “inherently means to voluntarily do the will of others. If we act contrary to that notion, we cease to serve.” The gentle grip of Hanry’s suggestion eased.
“Nonsense,” Hanry blurted. “The person in need is often too steeped in their own misfortune to see clearly what is right or best for themselves.”
Thaelon could feel the words begin again to take root in his mind, as soft as cottonwood seed falling to rest on a riverbank.
“That is arrogance,” Thaelon argued. “It supposes we know better than those we serve. And it’s a misuse of our abilities.”
Hanry looked down, referring to his notes. When he raised his gaze again to Thaelon, his wry grin had returned. “What of the Civilization Order, my Randeur? How do you reconcile a government’s decree that a Sheason not render the Will, with, say, the request from a parent to heal their sick child?”
These words gripped Thaelon’s mind more tightly than any that had come before. He could feel himself losing the strength of his convictions. Hanry was a master contrarian. And looking into the man’s eyes and slight, wicked grin, he realized this was more than a practical demonstration. His opponent here believed in Vendanj’s approach to service. Thaelon had been deliberately drawn into this debate by a dissenter. Hanry abhorred the Trial of Intentions. Thaleon could now feel it as plainly as the shirt on his shoulders.
And his answer was … he had no good answer. Perhaps his anger clouded his reason. Or perhaps Hanry’s gift for contrariness had stolen it from him.
Hanry took advantage of Thaelon’s hesitation to offer his own opinion. “What you have here, my Randeur, is a conflict of interests. And, if I may be so bold, while you equivocate on the fundamental question of how best a Sheason should serve, many of the order perish. And I do not speak metaphorically. Men and women are dying. This is not good leadership.”
Thaelon found himself nodding in agreement, and looked up into the small theater, noting the confused and expectant looks of the students. They waited on his reply. He was their Randeur. And he’d just been publicly criticized, humiliated. There might only be twenty young men and women in front of him, but what he said and did here, now, would surely reach the rest of Estem Salo. A second realization hit him: He was not the only one feeling the effects of Hanry’s influence. The malleable minds of these young people were being shaped and directed just as his was. He had to fight for them.
That’s all it took to break the suggestion that had begun to overwhelm him.
He didn’t turn to address Hanry, but instead directed his response to the students. “It’s not our role to coerce councils and kings, any more than I would coerce one of you to disregard the dictates of your own conscience—”
“More equivocation,” Hanry chimed in from the other side of the room.
“What you decide to do when called on to render aid, only you can answer. It may have the consequence of law, as it has with Rolen, which is why you must feel certain of your choice. But always, it must be guided by your oath. You cannot be Sheason and wield your Influence at any cost. Some things simply go too far.”
“These are platitudes,” Hanry offered dismissively. “They’re rote replies that ignore the realities of life for Sheason beyond the protection of Estem Salo. The world no longer holds any regard or respect for us. My Randeur, as you hide behind these antiquated proverbs, your order suffers. As a result, so do countless others. But…” Hanry’s smile changed—less cynical, though still angry. “There are those of us who imagine a different way. Those of us who stand behind a Sheason bold enough to declare, ‘Damn the costs!’” Hanry thrust a clenched fist into his lectern to emphasize his point.
In Thaelon’s mind rushed a flood of Hanry’s thought and Influence. Images of executed Sheason rose in his head. Images of Quiet, too. He could feel commitment to his own path waning. His legs weakened, and he saw Hanry’s smile tug his mouth into a perceptibly wider grin. He was slowly accepting the master contrarian’s logic. The rushing of Influence would soon erase his own objections entirely. And it would take place as nothing more than a practical demonstration for Sulivon students.
Sulivon students. The next generation of Sheason. Who were systematically being taught self-interest. By Hanry.
That realization stirred fresh anger. His own arguments formed and thrummed inside his head, but found no words. A mad, ironic thought occurred to him: I’ve come upon the ineffable: hatred.
He turned fully toward Hanry, silently judging him, letting his wrath for the man emanate outward. He thought about the many who had surely lost their way after listening to this exemplar’s opinions concerning service. The many that would be divested. A broken order of Sheason. He thought about the long line of Randeurs who had never failed to keep the order aligned behind a common interest. He thought about his wife and daughter, and the world he would leave them if he couldn’t unite the order entrusted to his care. He even thought of Rolen, and Vendanj, and the hardships that had befallen them.
He thought all these things, but had no words, only a feeling.
The bitter smile fell from Hanry’s face. Doubt rose clearly in the man’s eyes. It was different, Thaelon knew, from the self-doubt he himself had just felt. It was the difference between the effable and ineffable. Hanry had sought to change Thaelon’s mind. The power of Thaelon’s thoughts, on the other hand, drove a more fundamental contrariness: the question of Hanry’s existence at all.
The exemplar’s expression of doubt slipped to panic as he fell to his knees and raised to Thaelon a beseeching hand.
Thaelon’s mind turned not to mercy but the many Sheason deaths already come. Preventable deaths. Sheason falling while Hanry stood here, lecturing, asking questions, preaching dissent. Thaelon’s anger burned.
Only when it was too late, when Hanry managed a last, faltering, wry grin, did Thaelon understand. As the instructor of contrary Influence fell dead beside his lectern, a victim of his own contrariness, Thaelon realized that he’d been baited. Hanry had never intended to win a debate. The man’s attem
pts at effability were strong, but not ultimately convincing—deliberately too weak. Hanry … had meant to die. Or more accurately, he’d meant for Thaelon to kill him and have that death witnessed by a classroom full of students.
The dark irony was that Thaelon had done as the dissenters would have done. Imposed his Will. With the deception of a practical demonstration, Hanry had shown him the heart of the itinerant Vendanj. He had also made Thaelon a hypocrite. And news of all this would now spread.
These thoughts spilled onto another more disturbing thought. Perhaps I’m more like Vendanj than I realize.…
When his hatred and anger had abated, the silence that consumed the small theater seemed deafening. He might have been grateful for any sound, except that when the door opened, and Raalena poked her head inside, he heard only this: “My Randeur, come, there’s unsettling news.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Two Ways to Serve
Our failing, and why I frankly agree with the gods—real or otherwise—for abandoning us, is that we tend to care more about “how” than “what.” In other words, “how” a man serves a fellow man unfortunately matters more to us than the fact that he tries at all.
—From a controversial tract entitled, “In Defence of Abandoment,” published by the school of philosophy, Naltus Rey
All soldiers, even turnkeys, had been called into the civil conflict raging across Recityv. It left the dungeons and pits beneath Solath Mahnus unguarded. Vendanj raced down the halls, past doors that stood open. Other Sheason holding pits. Then, far up the long hall, he heard heavy thuds followed by weak groans. Rolen!
A few moments later he came to a stop at the open door to Rolen’s cell. He stepped inside and looked down the stairs into the gloom. In the heavy shadows, he made out the rich hue of several brown League cloaks. Two men looked up at Vendanj; two others continued their work in the darkness where Rolen was chained. He could hear his old friend grunting as each blow struck him. Rolen could be glad these leaguemen had decided to beat him before killing him, else Vendanj would’ve had no chance to rescue him.
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