by Tim Mathias
“No, I’m not concerned. We would find another place as we have many times already. But the Ardent will find you. And, of course, you’ll have that shadow at your heels again.”
“Why will you not help me?” Osmun asked. “It follows me now, but what if there are more? It wants something, and this fact doesn’t concern you at all?”
“Not one bit,” Nasiri said. “There may be more someday, or maybe not. There is no reason to expect it, and for now, there is only one and it seems interested in only you.” She stared at him, challenging him to refuse because she knew somehow that he could not. If Myron was right about the Ardent, then Osmun had few choices, and perhaps truly just one.
“What is it you want from there?” Osmun asked.
“The Untranslated Tome.”
Osmun slept on the concrete floor that night. He had more tea, and at his insistence, Myron had added more of the black bear’s root. He agreed to Nasiri’s demand, but needed undisturbed rest. With a few pinches of the root in his tea he could have slept still and for long hours on top of hot coals and it would not have bothered him in the slightest.
He still felt the presence near him, but the deep, otherworldly voice did not invade his sleep that night. The next morning, Nasiri slapped Osmun’s hand away from the jars where they stored the ground root.
“Too much is dangerous,” she said. “Once you’ve done what I ask and have no further need for you. But not before.”
It had been three days since he had fled the monastery. Coarse black stubble covered his cheeks and jaw. Myron left a small blade for him to shave, but he decided not to. If he looked even slightly different, it would be an advantage for him. Osmun lifted the blade.
“You aren’t afraid that I might attack you with this?” he asked Myron.
“Not really,” Myron laughed. “That would be awfully foolish of you, wouldn’t it? We’re the only friends you’ve got at the moment, I’m afraid. How long will you last by yourself with the Ardent looking for you? Not long, I’d wager.”
“Some friends,” Osmun said, pocketing the blade.
“I know.” Myron laughed again. “You’re in an awful bad way.”
They left him alone much of the time. One or both of them would leave and go out into the streets to do… Osmun didn’t know what. It must have been true about the Ardent; why else would they leave him alone so readily unless they knew that he had no other allies, no friends, and nowhere else to turn? In those solitary hours he fretted over the unknowable consequences of delivering the Untranslated Tome to Nasiri. Why did she need it? Would she even honour her word? He concluded, though, that once he expelled the stalking shadow back to the Beyond, once he proved all of this to Andrican and Egus, he would help lead the Ardent to them. They were apostates, plotting at something unknown, but criminal at the very least, if not entirely sinister. He would blame the theft from the Compendium on them, too. They would protest and divulge his involvement, but who would believe them?
“Have you decided how you will do it?” Nasiri asked him that afternoon.
Osmun had spent the last few hours scrawling notes onto pages before crumpling up the paper and tossing it onto the still-warm embers of the wood stove. “I think so.” He could feel her standing behind him, looking over his shoulder at the words on the page.
“How complicated can it be?”
“It can be very complicated, I promise you. I don’t even know how the Compendium door is meant to open.”
“One more day,” she said. “And then it must be done.”
“How will I know where to find it? What if it’s one among a hundred tomes?”
“Do you know how often historians go back to that book? Every few months someone thinks they have found a key to unlock its secrets or thinks they can find a hint that everyone else has missed. It is read and read again so often that it is a wonder the ink hasn’t rubbed off on their hands. It will be in a prominent place.”
Osmun turned away from the hearth to face her. “What do you need it for?”
“It was ours,” she said. “Ryferian soldiers took it during the second invasion of Ivesia. It belongs back with us.” Nasiri turned and left the room, affronted by the question. “One more day,” she said.
Chapter 11
Voices seemed to hush as Julian Tomarus walked by. Word had quickly spread that Osmun Arus, the man whose skill was envied and coveted by all, had poisoned the old historian and then fled. Word had spread just as quickly that Julian had been with Osmun when it happened. Vicar Eldon had questioned Julian for hours. He had sat in the vicar’s chamber, answering question after question, nervous and frightened, but the vicar had remained calm and dispassionate even as Julian began to weep when the same questions were posed in different manners.
At the end of it, Vicar Eldon found him innocent, or at least that’s what Julian assumed. Why else would he have let him go? But the suspicion of the authority cast a shadow on him that all others heeded. His studies of the Whitewing mountains had come to a halt. He had returned to the library the day after Nestor’s death, and when the few disciples there saw him, they could not help but stare. A few of them whispered to each other. “Has he come to poison us, too?” he heard one say to another, and they both laughed. He would not – could not – go back to the library after that.
Nor would he have any help. When he asked Brother Viktor to get a book for him, the older disciple refused. “What’s wrong, Julian?” Viktor taunted. “Are you afraid of the ghost of the old man?” He was afraid, though. Everyone could see it. Afraid that something as insubstantial as an unfortunate association would bury his aspirations before they had even taken shape.
He read and re-read the only book he still had in his possession: a history of the Ryferian conflicts with Ivesia, a book he had only taken from the library for its tangential references to the Whitewings. The war itself was uninteresting to him. The conflict and the struggles were for different sorts of men; Julian was only interested in the faith, how it spoke to him, how it transcended boundaries, corporeal and spiritual.
By candlelight in his room, Julian was reading the same chapter he had read dozens of times before. And, as had been happening more frequently in the recent days, his eyes washed over the words of the page but took in nothing, like a starving man unable to swallow a meal. This would all pass, he told himself. It had to.
“Julian.” The voice from the darkness startled him. He nearly jumped to his feet. The candle fell over and extinguished. Julian remained silent, perched on the edge of his bed in total darkness wondering if he had actually heard his name or if he had only imagined it. He listened to the silence, focusing on it, hearing it retreat from the rapid beat of his heart.
“Julian, it’s me… It’s Osmun.”
The disciple stood and wiped his trembling, sweaty hands against his robes.
“It’s Osmun,” the voice said again when Julian remained silent.
“What do you want?” Julian whispered. He was immobile, his body commanded by fear.
“Your help. But we cannot speak here. Follow me, if you can.”
It was not difficult for them to leave the monastery unnoticed at night. Most were sleeping, save some of the more devout monks. Some would lose themselves in a state so worshipful that they were virtually ignorant of their surroundings, staying motionless sometimes from one sunrise to the next. Osmun and Julian passed one kneeling before a shrine to Anson Marinus, and another sitting outside, eyes closed and serene. They crept around him, making sure to stay out of his line of sight should they disturb him, but Julian noticed that, despite the chill in the night air, the monk showed no signs of noticing. They could have their clandestine discussion next to him and he would not even stir.
Osmun wasted no time once they were outside the stone wall that encircled the monastery.
“I need your help because you’re the only one I can ask. I need you to trust me and do as I ask. It is important. I cannot even explain how important it is,
but… it is serious.”
In the flickering light of the torches lit atop of the monastery walls, Julian saw the expelled priest, saw how his features had sharpened. He looked leaner, as though he had shed his confidence and replaced it with something else. Something malign.
“What they say you’re guilty of, Osmun… did you do it?”
“Of course not.” Osmun did his best to sound reassuring.
“Everyone thinks you’re guilty already! Some say the Ardent are after you, is that true?”
“If they were, I would not be here. I would not think to put you in that kind of danger.”
“I can’t help you…I won’t help you if they are after you. Do you know how people look at me now? They think you killed Nestor and they think that I helped you!” Julian’s voice trembled as he spoke and he began to choke back tears. It had all been too much, and he did not even have someone he could talk to about it until now, and the person it was could not even help him. He could, however, make things very much worse.
Osmun gripped Julian by the shoulders. “You want to do something meaningful with your life. I know you do. And you want it to be something that strengthens the faith. That is what I want as well, Julian. But I need help. There is something happening here that no one will talk about. There is some kind of evil at work, but none of the other priests can see it. By the Beacon, none of the clerics can even see it. It could even be manipulating them! I have to stop it, and I cannot do it alone. Now you either believe me or you do not, but I think you know me well enough at least to know that I am not a liar, and I am certainly no murderer.”
“What if I say no? What will you do?” Julian asked. Osmun released him, and Julian saw disappointment in his eyes.
“If you say no… then I will do this on my own. Or, I suppose, I will attempt to. I’ll fail, likely.”
“I don’t want things to get worse for me.”
“I know. And if our plights were reversed, I would not want to be involved either, but nothing would change. It may not get worse, but it won’t get better.” Osmun pointed to the monastery hidden behind the stone walls. “Our brothers of faith in there, they are exacting in their judgments. They won’t forget. You must prove yourself, and I am giving you that chance.”
A few tears escaped from Julian’s eyes. He wanted only distance from Osmun, but the words of the former priest were the truth of his plight. No one had any reason to forgive him. As soon as the two of them had gone to the library together, their fates had become connected. Perhaps it was the will of Xidius. A test. And though he was young, Julian knew he was not incapable. After all, which great figures in the faith earned their esteem by mere scholarship? There had to be a test somewhere.
Julian walked into the Great Cathedral with a considerable degree of hesitance. He fought to keep his gait normal, though he was sure he looked at least half as nervous as he felt. He nearly jumped as the doors of the Cathedral clanged shut behind him. He had only been to the Cathedral a handful of times since he had become a disciple at the monastery; much of the rest of his time was spent on his studies.
There were only a few dozen people seated in the pews in the massive room, all of them sitting quietly, reading from the Recounting, praying, or just listening to the ubiquitous hymns of the choir that enveloped the room so thoroughly that there seemed no point of origin.
He walked down the centre aisle between the pews, though he would have much preferred to skulk along the walls next to the cloisters. But he was expected. One of the historians, Abelus Cypra, had agreed to meet him and discuss the rigors of becoming a historian and what was required of one to serve the church in that role. Julian had had to lie to Vicar Eldon in order for this arrangement to be made. “I don’t think I can continue my studies as I would like,” he had said. “After what happened, and the way I am treated with suspicion now, I think a change is necessary.” So there was some truth to it, which helped him stammer through his request, though after the meeting, he succumbed to his immense nervousness and retched behind the dormitory.
Abelus was standing off to the side of the dais and came forward to meet Julian as he neared the front of the hall. He wore black robes with white trim and a mantle of yellow silk over his shoulders. He smiled broadly and shook Julian’s hand vigorously. Under bushy white eyebrows – the only hair on Abelus’ head – the historian’s warm and welcoming eyes put Julian at ease.
“Welcome, welcome, young Julian!”
“Thank you for seeing me, Author Cypra.”
“Oh, please, please, only Brother Cypra. Come, come, let’s get started.” Abelus put his arm over Julian’s shoulder and led him through a door and a steep set of stairs going down. “I was thrilled when Vicar Eldon told me you were considering changing the focus of your studies.”
“Yes, that’s true. I had been researching the ascension, but… well, things have changed.”
Abelus stopped and turned when they reached the bottom of the stairway. “Did it have anything to do with what happened with Brother Osmun?”
“Somewhat,” Julian nodded. “I feel like I should start something new. The monastery is a place of bad memories now.”
“I understand, I do. For what it’s worth, I did not think it could be true that such a promising disciple could have been involved in such a terrible crime. But, on to better things, yes?” Abelus began walking again. The stone halls were narrow. Dozens of lanterns hanging on the walls soaked the otherwise cold stones in a comforting glow. “Being a historian is not easy. Many try and few succeed. It is a lonely life. The only people you will come to know well are those written in books. Dead scholars and figures of old will be your family.”
“What about other historians?”
“Ah, yes, well, you would think we would be a close bunch, wouldn’t you? But the truth is that we are recorders of things and deeds that, by the edict of Emperor Kaldenius, are not to be spoken of. We keep many secrets. Our lives are devoted to them, but we cannot speak of them. Now, I think, you probably understand why we are lonely. We have no families, no war stories to share with each other. We have the stories of other cultures that are never to be told. And truthfully, Julian, more historians die for inadvertently breaking the edict than die from old age. I am not telling you this to dissuade or frighten you, but so that you are certain in your decision, if this is what you ultimately choose.”
Every word the historian said was likely true, Julian thought. He had hardly stopped talking since they shook hands as though he was tasting the air after holding his breath for decades.
The hallway turned a sharp left and the ceiling and walls both widened as the hall came to an end at a wide steel door set within a thick steel frame. The metal was so smooth and pure that Julian nearly mistook it for a mirror. “Enough of my ramblings, though,” Abelus said. “Vicar Eldon said you had mentioned wanting to see the Compendium.” The historian gestured towards the door with pride. “This is the Compendium. What is behind that door represents the Empire’s defeated foes. A thousand thousand lifetimes of history.”
“I thought it would have been guarded,” Julian said.
“No need!” Abelus chuckled. “An army could spend a week at this door with a battering ram and may only succeed in marring it.”
“Really? How was something this strong ever created?”
“A story for another time, perhaps. A long and intricate process, no doubt. I am no metallurgist, so I fear I could hardly say.”
As Julian stared at his reflection in the door he noticed the silence. In his periphery, he could see Abelus looking at him. There was some kind of uncertainty there, Julian thought. Something had happened that had changed his demeanour quite suddenly. He walked forward and placed his palm against the smooth metal. “It’s a marvel,” he said.
Abelus nodded in agreement. “It’s quite something, yes.” The historian stood close behind Julian, and in the reflection Julian saw his hands fidgeting.
Julian knocked on the door as ha
rd as he could before turning to Abelus and smiling. “All of your secrets are safe.”
Abelus nodded again and extended his arm around Julian’s shoulder again to lead him away from the Compendium. “Yes, well, we should continue.” Julian agreed, and walked alongside the historian, sensing tremors in the once-calm hands that now rested on his shoulders.
Chapter 12
“He’s lying.”
Osmun looked from Nasiri to Myron and back to Julian. In the warm basement of the storehouse, they all sat on pillows as they listened to the young disciple tell of what had happened in the Cathedral. Osmun was hesitant to bring Julian to see the other two, but Nasiri insisted out of a lack of trust for outside parties. She hadn’t threatened Julian; she had left that task to Osmun instead. “He doesn’t know us, and he trusts you. So if you tell him the cost of betraying this secrecy, he will believe you.”
It was smart, but it also gave Osmun the chance to instruct Julian on what to do about these criminals should anything happen to him. For her own part, Nasiri played the silent host, providing food and tea for them as they listened to Julian so that he would see her as generous and benevolent, with the only threat of harm coming vicariously through Osmun.
“Lying about what?” Osmun asked.
Julian looked at the floor and slowly spun his cup of tea as he spoke. “As soon as I met him, he began talking. That was all he did. Like he was desperate for the chance to speak about his life. And after hearing about the confines of their lives, about the secrecy, I could understand. They can hardly speak to anyone about anything.”
“And yet you still somehow caught this man in a lie?” Nasiri’s question was pointed and disbelieving. Julian nodded without looking up to meet her hard stare.
“He talked about his duty and its demands. When we got to the Compendium—”
“Is the entrance as flawless as they say?” Myron asked. Nasiri shot him an angry look which he tried to ignore.
