The Shattered Vigil

by Patrick W. Carr

  “It doesn’t, but I’ve read every text on the subject.” A small wince ran across his features as he paused to stretch. “Quite a few of them deal with minimizing discomfort.” He tried to squat, then thought better of it, shaking his head. “I’m going to have to amend some of them.” He smiled. “I think some of the authors overestimated their expertise.”

  Volsk grunted as he moved about the clearing, duck-walking to ease the cramps from his legs. Rory tried to stand and fell back to the ground with a groan. “I’m never moving from this spot.”

  Bolt spared a glance for Volsk, but the erstwhile prisoner had busied himself with stripping the tack from his horse and seemed to constitute little threat. He walked toward his apprentice, his gaze flat. “Get up. It’s time to continue your training.”

  Rory gaped. “Are you mad, growler? It’ll be days before I can walk normally again, yah?” He pointed at Bolt’s chest. “You’re pushing the pace on purpose just to keep me from being able to steal. If I hit the rooftops like this I’m going to fall and break my neck.”

  Bolt turned away to grab a pair of wooden practice swords from the pack behind his saddle. “You’re not injured, yet—you’re just sore,” he said. “And soreness can be endured or ignored. I don’t much care which of those you choose, so long as you choose. Now get up or I’m going to beat you until you do.”

  Bolt waited perhaps half a heartbeat and then started whacking Rory on the legs. At first the thief tried to roll away, but Bolt followed, his strikes coming harder and faster. Rory shifted and dodged on the ground, working to get his legs beneath him, but Bolt pursued, pinning him there. I gaped as their gifts and talents manifested, each slash and dodge coming so quickly that I could hardly see them.

  Rory feinted left, and when Bolt’s practice sword came whistling, pivoted on the ground with his hands tucked next to his head and flipped backward to a crouch. “All right! I’m up, you crazy growler.”

  Bolt relaxed for a second, the point of his sword dipping toward the ground before he flexed his wrist to send the wooden stave streaking toward Rory’s side.

  Whack.

  Rory doubled over. “Kreppa,” he snarled. “What did you do that for?”

  Bolt stepped back. “Two reasons. First, your job is to protect him.” Bolt gestured toward me with his free hand. “Never, ever, let your guard down—not for a moment, not for anyone.” He paused. “Not even for me.”

  “Second, until you take my place at his side, you will do what I say the first time I say it.”

  I stepped between the pair to face Bolt and lowered my voice to a whisper. “Go easy. He’s not a soldier. The military chain of command is unfamiliar to him. The streets are all he’s ever known, and the urchins question authority as naturally as breathing.”

  My guard nodded. “I know and that’s one of the reasons I picked him, but until he shoulders the idea of unceasing vigilance, this is the way it will have to be. Stay out of this.” Bolt stepped around me and tossed the practice sword toward Rory.

  “Have you ever fought with a sword before?”

  Rory, his face still closed as a thundercloud, shook his head. Bolt sighed. “I hope I can live long enough to complete his training.”

  “How long does it take?”

  Bolt twitched his shoulders. “It varies, and the decision is made by the master—that’s me. When I have nothing left to teach him, he’ll be ready, but it’s going to take years.”

  I looked at Rory with his musician’s hands and his acrobat’s build. The boy was already more deadly than most anyone in Bunard. “I would have thought the boy’s physical gift would shorten the time.”

  Bolt barked a laugh. “Oh, he’ll be deadly enough after a month to beat anyone without a gift.” His gaze slid to me. “But that’s not what we need, is it?” He turned to face Rory. “You have to be the best. I’m not talking about the best in Bunard or Collum. I’m talking about the entire world.”

  Rory shook his head. “What’s the point?”

  Bolt lunged forward and grabbed Rory’s tunic, hauling him close. “The point is that there are people out there like Lord Baine—physically gifted but hiding it from the church so that they can sell their sword to the highest bidder. And the world has changed. That used to be all we had to worry about.”

  He thrust Rory away. “Hold your sword like this.”

  I turned from their practice session as Bolt ran Rory through the five parries, a lecture I’d heard myself when I was conscripted into Laidir’s army and again when I’d become a reeve. I squatted next to the tree where Custos sat watching Bolt’s instruction as if a book had come to life.

  “Interesting,” he said, glancing up at me. “I’ve read all the books on sword training and technique, of course, but it’s quite a different thing to see them put into practice.” He pointed to my guard. “Your friend Bolt is not only a master swordsman, he’s a master teacher. Half a dozen times now, he’s corrected flaws in young Rory’s approach, building a flawless foundation, explaining why to a depth that puts most of the books on the subject to shame.”

  “Custos, I need your help,” I said.

  His head swiveled toward me like a bird’s and he gave me an owlish blink of his large brown eyes. For a moment he almost grinned. “I don’t suppose you have any almond-crusted figs for my price?”

  “Not this time, my friend.”

  He shrugged. “All those sweets are probably bad for me.”

  I rubbed the bald dome of his head in affection. What had I ever done to deserve a friend such as him? “What do you know about children’s rhymes?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing really.” Custos saw the look on my face and went on. “Oh, I know all of them, of course, but I don’t know anything about them.”

  I laughed. “Forgive me if I’m being dense, old friend, but that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.”

  His head waved like a dandelion on the end of a stalk. “It does. In this case there is a difference between knowing a subject and in knowing about a subject. Bolt not only knows how to fight, I’ll warrant he knows where each technique originated, its history, and the advantages and disadvantages of it. I can recite every child’s rhyme to you in perfect detail, but I don’t know much beyond that because nobody has ever bothered to write about them.”

  I nodded. “Lady Bronwyn and the Chief of Servants said something back in Bunard that seemed important. They said the rhymes and nonsense games children play are much like they have been for countless centuries and that they’re at least as old as the liturgy.”

  Custos nodded. “That would explain Lady Bronwyn’s penchant for reciting them.”

  “You know all of them?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Would you write them down?”

  Custos laughed. “I don’t think we have time.”

  I shook my head. “I only want the very oldest and in the oldest form you can recall. If there’s something there that can help us, you’re better equipped to find it than anyone else.”

  He nodded. “The language will be a problem, Willet.”

  “How so? You taught me to understand it, remember?”

  He nodded. “But I couldn’t give you knowledge I didn’t have. You’ll be interpreting it as I would, which is only as good as the books I’ve read.”

  I sighed. Nothing was ever easy. “Let’s try anyway.”

  He pointed toward Bolt and Rory. “It will be a better use of my time than watching them practice. At my age, mastery of the sword is unlikely. How about ‘The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, since the proud became the meek.’”

  He grinned at me. “I’ll write the original form of that one first.” He busied himself with his ink and parchment, and I turned toward the final member of our party, who reclined a few paces away under a tree.

  I touched the door I’d built in my mind after I’d delved Volsk before Bas-solas. Just thinking about it brought an awareness of the construct I’d built to handle
the memories of everyone I’d delved, a round room modeled after the sanctum in the Merum library with doors leading to each remembered life. Even now they fought to get loose, and occasionally a memory would slip free and visions of people I’d never known would come to me.

  Then I would relive acts of violence and depravity I’d never committed.

  Knowing I was innocent didn’t help. I always felt as if I’d fallen into the gutter, the filth clinging to me like a second skin. I wandered over to the man who had tried to kill me, stopping three paces short.

  Volsk opened one eye, glancing at me before he sighed and sat up.

  “Custos is trying to unravel the mystery behind the Darkwater.”

  “He’ll need a healthy dose of luck,” Volsk said.

  “Bronwyn thought he might be able to do it.”

  He pursed his lips. “I doubt it. More accurately, she probably thought he had a chance, however small, of uncovering some facet of the cursed forest that might help.”

  I didn’t care for his tone and said so.

  His head swiveled toward me. “Try to understand this. The Vigil and their counterparts on the southern continent have been trying to understand the evil that lies within the forest here and the desert there for uncounted centuries. We’re talking about people who live for almost a thousand years, with a lot of time to fill. Don’t you think that if the key was hidden within a book they would have found it by now?”

  “None of them can do what Custos can,” I said. “His memory is perfect, and he only needs to read it once.”

  He nodded. “So you’ve said, but the Vigil as a whole, along with the people who work for them, can approximate his skill as a group.”

  I smiled. No matter how much I tried to explain, Peret Volsk had no idea what the man in front of us, intently scribbling on parchment, was capable of.

  Half an hour later the sun dipped below the horizon, leaving us with the purple light of dusk. Rory sat on the ground with his head down, sweat dripping down his nose as his lungs worked like a bellows.

  I stood, tried to stretch three days’ worth of soreness out of my legs, and made for the trees. “I’ll see if I can find some dry wood.”

  Bolt’s voice stopped me before I took a second step. “No fire,” he said. “Not tonight or any other night.” Bolt looked north toward the mountains of the cut, his mouth tight. “Let’s move the horses beneath the trees. We’ll sleep a bit warmer if we’re out of the breeze.”

  A thought occurred to me as I fell in beside Volsk. “Why are you still here?” I asked. “You could have run.”

  He broke from the glassy stare he must have mastered in prison to consider the question. “It’s as good as any other place,” he said. “For the moment.”

  “You could have left as soon as we were free of the city,” I pressed. “You could have slipped away the first night.”

  Volsk nodded toward Bolt. “That’s what he wants. Even when it looks like he’s not watching me, he is.”

  Bolt nodded. “‘Keep your friends close . . .’” He turned to Volsk. “A part of me hoped you would try to leave. That would have given me all the excuse I needed to hunt you down and kill you.”

  Volsk almost smiled. “That same thought occurred to me. Sorry to disappoint you.” He looked at me. “My allegiances never changed. I’ve hated the Darkwater since I was a boy, and I’ve wanted to fight it for as long as I can remember wanting anything.”

  “When did that turn into working to get me killed?” I asked.

  To his credit he didn’t try to deny the accusation or make excuses for it. “From the moment the priests at the House of Passing described Elwin’s death. His gift was meant for me.”

  “Answer this . . . ” Bolt said, his voice flat and hard as an anvil.

  Volsk turned away and shrugged, as Bolt continued. “You were Elwin’s apprentice. How is it that you were absent at his death?”

  “Apprentices are not guards,” Volsk said without looking at anyone. “It’s not our duty to watch over our masters without ceasing.”

  “Glib,” Bolt said, “but pointless. Where were you? What were you doing while Elwin was dying?”

  Volsk’s eyebrows drew up over his smirk. “You accuse me of Elwin’s death?”

  But Bolt shook his head. “If by that you ask, do I think you held the sword, by no means. That was Robin’s doing. Yet I can’t help but notice you haven’t answered.”

  My guard took a step toward Volsk, his hands empty, but that meant little to someone in possession of a gift as pure as his. “Where were you, Peret Volsk, when Elwin was attacked? Were you watching, waiting for him to die, hoping for his gift?”

  Volsk’s skin flushed, and he refused to answer. But he held his ground as well, planted like a tree, accepting Bolt’s questioning without protest or defense. My guard made the most of the opportunity.

  “This is beneath you,” I said to Bolt. “He’s agreed to help us find Faran, and you yourself told me the rest of the Vigil delved him before they put him in prison. If he had been complicit in Elwin’s death, they would have killed him then and there.”

  “Perhaps.” Bolt nodded. “But they never said where he was, and our former apprentice, the man who was going to be the strongest holder of the gift in a thousand years, hasn’t answered my question. Well, Volsk?”

  I threw up my hands. “Oh, for the love of Aer, have mercy.”

  Bolt turned his attention to me. “That you would say such a thing shows how little you comprehend the nature of the Vigil. Mercy is for those who can afford it. You hold the gift of domere. You judge. You don’t grant mercy. Not ever.”

  I shook my head. “No. I won’t sacrifice the rest of my humanity. I’ve already lost enough of it, and I refuse to believe it’s necessary.” I nodded toward Volsk. “And neither is this conversation. I touched him—remember?” Searching through the construct of the Merum sanctuary I’d built in my mind, I found the door that held Volsk’s memories.

  “That was when you were drugged,” Bolt said. “What could you remember?”

  I opened the door. “I don’t think the gift cares.” Memory flooded into me, most of it centered on Toria Deel in uncomfortable intensity.

  I drifted back—still unused to experiencing memories as both owner and watcher—until I came to Volsk’s memory of riding to the House of Passing, fear so desperate that it nearly robbed me of the ability to breathe. Then, just a bit further back in time, seeing Robin’s body by the stone wall next to the Rinwash River, overhearing the guards speaking of Elwin.

  I followed the strand of memory backward until I came to a darkened room, saw the flare and dancing flame of a lamp and two other men that I knew to be Elwin and Robin. Within the part of me that was the Eldest’s apprentice, I knew the hour to be well past midnight, yet both Elwin and Robin were dressed.

  “Peret,” Elwin said, “Robin and I must run an errand. We’ll return shortly.”

  I rubbed sleep from my eyes as I rolled from my bed. “It will only take me a moment to dress, Eldest. I’ll come with you.”

  Elwin held out his hand, palm forward, and shook his head. “No need.” His unblinking gaze flicked toward Robin at his side, and he cleared his throat. “No need. This will take but a moment.”

  But when I looked at Robin, he wore the expression of a man attempting to hide the evidence of an argument.

  “Let me come with you, Eldest,” I said.

  But Elwin shook his head. “No. You’re young. There’s no need for you—” he paused—“for you to lose sleep as well.”

  He lifted his hand and put it on my head, and for a moment I wondered if he would release his gift to me.

  “Soon, Peret, you will hold the gift,” Elwin sighed. Then resolution filled his expression. “Soon. But I have a task to complete first, a promise made.”

  Elwin turned to leave the room, his back to both Robin and me, and for an instant by the fading light of the Eldest’s lantern I could see Robin’s face.

&
nbsp; “Follow,” he mouthed without a sound. Then he left to accompany Elwin on his errand.

  I waited until I could hear the sound of their footsteps descending the stairs, decision warring within my chest. As Elwin’s apprentice for the last four years I had sworn to obey him. What was the word of his guard against that? Guards did not hold the gift, could not imagine the depth of insight their masters held. I shook my head and put the boots I held in one hand to the side and stretched out on the bed, trying to find sleep. Two hours later I rose to check my master’s room.

  I closed the door to Volsk’s memories. Blinking, I saw my companions gazing at me by the last light of dusk, the sense of dislocation I always felt fading as my real identity reasserted control.

  “I’m having a hard time trying to figure out who I want to hit most,” I said. I looked at Bolt. “If the rest of the Vigil were here I’d tell them just how incredibly stupid they’ve been.” I turned to Volsk. “Aer in heaven, how could you be so dense? The man knew he was going into danger. It was written all over him.”

  Volsk shook his head. “I wouldn’t expect a rogue like you to understand the obedience the Eldest of the Vigil commands.”

  This was more familiar, this rationalization. I’d seen it all too often in those left alive at the end of the fighting, witnessed it in those who’d held back while others charged. “Let me say this in a way you can understand.” I swept Bolt and Volsk into my gaze. “You are all idiots,” I said enunciating each word singly.

  I saw them both stiffen, but I stabbed a finger at Bolt. “That Pellin, Bronwyn, and Toria Deel all delved him and knew of this but didn’t tell me is past believing. I can’t begin to describe how utterly stupid it was.”

  “Why should they tell you?” Volsk challenged. “Who are you compared to them?”

  I saw Bolt shake his head. At least he understood.

  “Who am I?” I asked. “I’m the one member of the Vigil who’s been a reeve. They have hundreds of years of experience, but they don’t deal with people.” I pointed at Bolt. “He’s already told me what life in the Vigil is like. Years of inactivity and solitude with the occasional hunt for someone who has brought their insanity back from the Darkwater.”