They reached the cave and guardedly entered, stopping to sit only when the shadows hid them completely. Penit eased Wendra to the cave floor. She felt the cool invitation of the ground there on her cheek and lay down.
Sometime later a great rushing wind howled against the cave entrance. Moments later rock and debris fell from the cliff, sealing the cave’s entrance and dropping them into blackness.
* * *
She awoke to the same darkness. “Penit,” she whispered.
“Right here,” the boy replied. He reached out and touched her arm.
She jumped at his touch, causing a twinge in her leg. Sweat coated her face and neck. The fever had spread. She sat up and leaned back against the cave wall.
“Any sign of the others?” she asked.
“The rockslide covered the entrance.” Penit scooted closer to her, his boots and bottom scraping the cavern floor. “Can we start a fire?” he asked. “It’s getting cold.”
“Is there wood?”
Penit stood and returned a moment later with an armload he laid on the cave floor beside her. She pulled a flint from her coat pocket and handed it to the boy. Soon enough, they had a fire. His face, streaked with dirt and tears, glowed in the orange glare of the flames with a thankful smirk that warmed Wendra’s heart.
When she felt rested, she tried to stand, but her leg had grown stiff and numb. She sat again and looked at Penit, who appeared content despite the events that had brought them here. She thought she could see circumstances and nightmares leaving him as he put himself in the present moment, tending a healthy fire. She envied him this, living so contentedly, even for a few moments, without concern for tomorrow. She smiled, thought of her father. He must have looked at her this way. It made her glad. Perhaps she had offered him some respite from his own hardships.
“When do we go find the others?” Penit said, interrupting the silence.
Life on the pageant wagons had certainly instilled persistence in him. “Tomorrow. My leg is stiff and I have the sweats. After I sleep, and it’s light, we’ll dig our way out and search for them. They may well find us; Mira knew which direction we were headed.”
“Good,” Penit replied.
They steadily fed the flames and remarked softly about unimportant things, the way she and Balatin and Tahn had done. Sometime later in the evening, she began softly to sing, her song a perfect counterpoint to the crackle of the fire and the low hum of wood being consumed by flame. Penit crawled closer and rested his head on her lap. Long before the fire had burned to coals, Wendra followed the boy into sleep.
* * *
Wendra woke to the sound of Penit fussing over kindling and flint. A faint light streamed through a small crack or two in the rockslide at the mouth of the cave. She sat up, several drops of sweat falling from her nose and forehead. The fever was worse. And she’d lost a great deal of blood. Even without standing she knew her leg would be no use to her.
Propping herself up, she wiped her face and sat a moment as Penit finished relighting the fire. What she must ask of him was too much. But she must ask. Merely sitting up had exhausted all her strength.
“Penit, I need your help.”
“Sure.” He showed her a helpful expression.
“I can’t walk.” She swallowed hard to keep her emotions from welling up. “I’ll need help if I’m to make it to Recityv.” She paused, looking into the boy’s large blue eyes.
Penit didn’t hesitate. “I can crawl through the rockslide and find someone.” Then he surprised her. “It was hard for you to ask me that, wasn’t it?” The smile he gave was older by far than the face that made it. “I can take care of myself. Have for three years now. I’ll find water and follow it. Water always leads to people.”
“Be careful. Even if the Bar’dyn are gone, a child … a young man alone on the road isn’t safe.”
Penit smirked knowingly. “I’ve seen my share of scalawags. They’re always close to the wagon pot trying to lift a coin.” His smile faded and he looked distantly into the fire. “I’ll be careful. I don’t want to see any more dark clouds.”
He offered no explanation, and Wendra chose to hold her questions. “You’ll be all right, Penit.” Her voice broke with emotion. She wiped her brow and eyes with the hem of her cloak.
“You, too,” the boy said.
Penit gathered a great stack of wood for her. When he’d finished, he knelt beside her. “You’re sick because of me, because you came after me and got hurt. I won’t fail. I will come back.”
Wendra put her arms around him and kissed his cheek. “Go safely.”
He rose and walked to the mouth of the cave, where he stopped and looked back. “I lied before. Right after you let me come with you from Myrr. I do care about the pageant wagon, the troupe. And I miss them.” He stopped, seeming to reflect. “But I had to get away. I saw what happens after a life on the boards.”
He left off there, and climbed the rockslide to the top. He worked at the smaller boulders until he’d opened a thin window. He didn’t look back again before he crawled through and was gone.
Wendra lay back down in the cool loam of the cavern floor.
Over the next several hours, she drifted in and out of consciousness. Too weak to even lift herself up, she lay on the ground and watched the last dances of fire shadow on the uneven surface of the rocky ceiling. Fever sweat drenched her clothes, and her lips dried and cracked from panting and dehydration.
As the fire died, the cave grew quiet and cold. Dim light shone from the entrance as the day came fast to a close. Chills shook her violently, alternating with hot waves of fever. She lay listening to the sound of her own heart in her ears.
Perhaps the Sheason or the Far would find her before Penit could return with help. But she’d been here more than a day. If they hadn’t come to her yet, they’d likely turned east toward Recityv.
She was alone.
Worry and frustration brought sobs to her throat. She coughed from the thick emotion. The convulsions from the coughing tore at the wounds in her hip and ankle.
Lying on her back worsened the coughing. She managed to roll onto her side to try and calm the spasms. Her coughs now stirred the fire ash into small clouds that settled and clung to her sweat-slickened face. The smell of spent alder and soot nauseated her, but the wracking convulsions stopped, and she breathed easier. Lying still, Wendra felt an uncomfortable lump protruding into her side. She reached into the folds of her coat and removed the box she had brought with her from beneath her bed back home.
Carefully, she placed the song box beside her head. A wan smile touched her lips at the memories the box’s cedar smell evoked, and the gulf that separated her from the life when the box had been so important. Then her thoughts turned bitter, and she considered how much better this token might serve as wood for her fire than as a reminder of what was no more. Salty tears stung her eyes and ran over her nose and cheeks. She liked the feel of them and did not wipe them away, tasting them as they ran onto her lips.
The song box reminded her of home, but also of Vendanj’s insistence that she accompany them to Recityv. To meet the Maesteri at Descant Cathedral, where song was everything. Where they sang the Song of Suffering, to keep the Veil strong.
She fingered open the box’s clasp and lifted its lid. Softly, its melody played, small gears turning the roll inside, which plucked a tune through the tiny tone prongs. The delicate song was too soft to ring as high as the cave’s ceiling. But it fell on the fire pit, and the cavern floor round her, and her own tired ears like a memory. She closed her eyes. The gentle notes called out their melody like a wounded bird, and Wendra felt herself falling into a fevered sleep.
Suddenly, she had the feeling that she was not alone. Opening her eyes, she saw seated across from her a kindly-looking man in a brilliant white robe. Between them, the fire had been rekindled. Distantly, like wind causing chimes to jangle, she could hear the melody of her box.
A fever vision?
; Maybe. But despite not feeling any immediate fear, she sensed that her life had just irrevocably changed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Rushing of Je’holta
A man or woman has only so much life. At an abstract level, if it was possible to give it all away, death would occur. We agree that energy is not destructible, only transferable. But where we disagree is on the notion that man has any such ability.
—From A Defense of Mortality, an academic response made by the Society of Philogists at Ebon South to the esoteric notions of Will; often quoted by League leadership
Braethen lay on the ground staring up through the great hole in the mist. His chest heaved from exertion. He clutched in his left hand the sword Vendanj had given him. The Sheason remained still, one hand to his chest, the other extended. Around them, the ashy heap that had been the Maere still smoked in the bright shaft of light that broke through the gloom.
The sound of hurried footsteps could be heard in the cloud; vague, retreating sounds. The cries and moans deep within the fog bank slowly faded, leaving Braethen and Vendanj in a deep silence. The hole torn in the mist began slowly to close, but for several moments the two sat in the sunlight catching their breath.
“Do we wait for the others?” Braethen asked.
Vendanj shook his head tiredly. “I heard heavy strides, Bar’dyn probably, chasing them when the line broke. The Quiet will feel the death of the Maere, gather quickly, and come for us. We’ll wait for Mira to return, then try to find Tahn and the rest.”
“What of the voices in the mists?”
“They’re no longer alive in the flesh. The mist gives them shape to the eye, but their influence is in the mind. Souls lost while serving Quietus.”
“The Bar’dyn aren’t affected by it?”
“The Bar’dyn and other lost races don’t feel hope the way you or I do. The taint of Male’Siriptus has no hold over them.”
The Sheason’s words drew Braethen’s thoughts back to the black world that had enveloped him when he’d tried to use the sword Vendanj had given him. “Darkness swallowed me.…”
Vendanj looked first at him, then at the encroaching wall of mist. Cautious footsteps rose in the quiet. The Sheason put a finger to his lips to silence the sodalist, stood, and turned in the direction of the sound. From the bank of darkness, Mira slowly emerged, her swords drawn, her face flushed.
“Wendra?” Vendanj asked.
“Bar’dyn found her and the boy deep in the mist. She fled while I fought them back.”
Vendanj nodded. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Out of patience,” she said sternly.
The mists followed her as she approached, and quickly Je’holta filled in the large hole above, blocking out the sun. She stopped near Braethen and appraised him carefully, her gaze alternating between him and the sword in his hand. Under her scrutiny, Braethen got to his feet and replaced the sword to its sheath. Around them, plumes of mist rose and fell, their touch feeling as a willow bud in early spring.
“We’ll go north to the edge of the cloud,” Vendanj said. “Perhaps the others have reached safety.” The Sheason extended a hand. “The power of Male’Siriptus still surrounds us. Be watchful.”
It took time, but eventually they emerged from the low, dark cloud, into the light of day. Braethen raised his arms and turned to face the sun.
“I’ll find the horses,” Mira said. “Je’holta will not go quietly.”
Vendanj nodded. “It will rage soon.”
Mira left at a run, covering ground with incredible speed. In a moment she disappeared from sight.
“We need to find shelter.” Vendanj got moving. “The rushing of Je’holta is painful to the point of death. It will howl like a storm dropping off the slopes of the Pall. Come.”
Vendanj hastened up a low hill. A dense copse stood halfway down the lee slope, the rain and weather having hollowed a space beneath the gnarled root system on the downhill side. Braethen and the Sheason ducked beneath it.
They sat silently in the protection of the hollow, looking out on the day and watching cloud shadows move across the land. Then a wind rose up, mild at first, nothing more than the breeze that precedes a summer shower. But soon it became a gale, carrying leaves and dust in streams down the hill below them. The trees swayed, low oak and sage rippling in the fierceness. Above them, the sky darkened, and the wind screamed in horrible gusts. Braethen squinted at the mists rushing past them at incredible speed. Branches were torn from their trunks and smaller plants uprooted entirely. Small sticks wheeled into the sky like feathers as the dark cloud rushed out.
The gale raged for several minutes, the tree roots around them groaning and straining against the onslaught of wind. The noise was deafening, like standing beneath a waterfall during spring thaw. Braethen grasped a root nearby to anchor himself, and hoped Mira had found cover. Vendanj sat with his cowl drawn up, a shadow in the rooted hollow, patiently waiting out the rushing of the winds.
The angry cloud expanded outward, dissipating to nothing. Soon, the howling died and the wind grew still. Light filtered through, replacing the darkness, and revealed the terrain around them, ravaged in the passing of Je’holta.
“Silent gods,” Braethen muttered.
“Let’s go,” Vendanj said, and stepped out from under the trees.
They hiked back to the top of the hill, and watched as Mira appeared over the rise to the west, leading four horses. Moments later, she arrived with their mounts, and Penit’s besides. Her hair had blown free of its band and fell in long, silken strands about her face and neck. Braethen hadn’t seen Mira like this; the difference surprised him.
“We may find the others traveling east toward Recityv,” she said. “But the winds have erased any trail we might have followed for leagues in any direction.”
They mounted and rode east, Mira constantly scanning the ground and horizon. All the rest of that day they rode, stopping finally when the light became too dim.
Mira secured the horses, then started a fire. Braethen helped her gather wood before sitting near the blaze and placing his sword in his lap to look it over. It was entirely unremarkable. No polish or finish. No markings. No edge to speak of. The metal was unyielding though. Tarnished, but strong.
Vendanj took a seat near the fire and removed his small wooden case from his cloak. Opening it, he took two leaves from a stem and placed them in his mouth. Then he settled in, clearly exhausted, to savor the fire’s warmth.
Mira left for some time, returning without a sound. She seated herself on the trunk of a fallen tree. “There’s no sign of them. But there’s no sign of Quiet, either,” she reported. “Perhaps the others moved further north before turning east.”
They shared a companionable silence for a time before Vendanj turned his attention on Braethen. “Tell me what you know of the Will.”
Braethen cleared his throat. “The Will is the power of creation.” He thought a moment. “It’s what moves us. It’s body and spirit. My father liked to say it’s the power that resides in all matter, and the matter that resides in all power.”
The Sheason lifted the symbol fastened to his necklace: three rings, one inside the next, all joined at one point. “It’s the nature of how one thing connects to another. Through space. Even through time.” He paused. “Through consequence.”
Vendanj ran his finger around the circles toward the point where they were joined. “It’s inner resonance with outward things.”
“And Forda I’Forza?” Braethen asked.
“Old words that mean the same thing: energy and matter,” Vendanj answered. “Sometimes called Ars and Arsa. All things are a marriage of the two. They list and heave under pressure from one another, becoming new, sometimes refining each other into beauty and balance, sometimes becoming discordant and unstable in a struggle to reach harmony. To reach Resonance.”
Vendanj let out a tired sigh. “To be confirmed a Sheason is to accept the responsibility of wielding the pow
er of the Will. The authority cannot be claimed; it must be given.”
Mira tossed two pieces of wood into the fire. “It’s a noble call, but not all those who receive it live long with the blessing.” She stared at Braethen across the fire, her grey eyes bright and knowing.
Vendanj tapped his chest. “We, ourselves, are Forda I’Forza. Our physical bodies are one half; thought and feeling the other. For some this second part is known as the spirit or soul. The idea of the First Ones was that this life would teach both halves.”
He lowered his eyes and took a handful of dirt from the earth between his feet. “When the Framers held council at the Tabernacle of the Sky, one was asked to create opposition to test and refine the races. But that one—Maldea was his name—grew cankored in his efforts. Swollen in his pride. The First Ones saw no way to reclaim the world, and so abandoned it.”
Vendanj looked away, the words seemingly distasteful in his mouth. Flaring eyes returned to Braethen. “It was the Sheason who kept the dream of the Fathers alive. The Sheason were those who served the First Ones. Sheason means ‘servant’ in the Covenant Tongue.”
He took a deep breath and let the dirt slip from his palm. Then he gathered Braethen’s attention with a hard stare. “The world became craven. The Veil was thin and those who followed Maldea wrought havoc and destruction over most of the kingdoms south of the Pall.”
“Maldea was given the name Quietus,” Braethen added—something from his history books.
“And when all seemed lost,” Vendanj went on, “a Sheason named Palamon rose in battle against Jo’ha’nel—Quietus’s first dark messiah. Palamon defeated Jo’ha’nel with the power to render the Will given him by the Framers.”
Vendanj paused, lending weight to what he said next. “That victory came with a price.”
Several long moments later, he continued. “To render the Will requires an expenditure of Forda I’Forza. Palamon would only draw that from himself. All Sheason after him have honored this covenant of personal sacrifice.”
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