Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered

by Orullian, Peter

  “Will we have a fire?” Wendra asked.

  “Not tonight,” Mira answered. “Get your weapons. We will go through the movements again.”

  At twilight they practiced for close to an hour, many swords oft dropped as muscles tired. When the light grew too dim to be useful, Mira released them and headed off into the trees. Tahn followed the Far a short way beyond the horses and watched as she laid out dried leaves and small twigs in the flat areas that led toward their camp. All around the camp at fifty strides she did the same.

  “You could help me, woodsman, it’s not a difficult task,” Mira said.

  Tahn rushed forward, quickly picking up sticks and laying them down as he had watched her do. Together they worked, Tahn stealing glances at the Far from time to time. She reminded him not at all of a Hollows girl. Besides being nearly as tall as him, she had not grown broad in the hips as did most women in the Hollows. And while her looks were striking, she did not use her eyes and hands in coy suggestion the way melura girls typically did. When Mira had removed her cloak, she had let down her hair; a deep black, when the last rays of sun caught there, a vague tint of red, like fire, lay suddenly revealed. Tahn felt a stirring in his loins.

  “You wear your desires too openly,” Mira said, as she finished her precautions. “The art of esteem is subtlety.”

  Tahn likewise finished and stood up. They stared together into the west. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “I am not easy to offend … or interest.” She let her mouth tug into that barest of smiles. Her face brightened even then; and while she didn’t smile often, when she did, it was as if her smile had never left.

  Tahn remembered himself then, the things in his heart besides the growing feelings for the Far. “Tell me why they want me.”

  “When Vendanj wants you to know, he will tell you. I understand your desire to know, but I would not betray the Sheason’s confidence. Don’t ask that of me.”

  In the distance, a dark bird flew into the light of the setting sun, bearing in their direction.

  “He asks me to trust him, but he gives me no reason to do so. If my father were alive, he’d have had answers before agreeing to any of this.” Tahn threw a stick he’d been holding.

  Mira canted her head, looking more skyward. “Trust is only meaningful when you must proceed without certain knowledge.”

  Tahn thought about that, tried to refute it. Ultimately, he gave up, and turned to the other real questions in his heart. “Is it true that you live a shortened life?” He stopped, wishing he’d framed his question better, and started again. “I mean, the stories tell that Far are blessed with quickness in the body, and that the price is an early death.”

  This time, both sides of her mouth found that slight smile. “That sounds like an author’s pen. But yes, it’s essentially true. My people share a very old covenant. Don’t ask me what it is, because I must not say. But in trade for our service to that oath, we never pass the age of accountability. I believe you call it the Change. Our lives end naturally when we have seen the end of our eighteenth cycle of the seasons.”

  The bird they watched grew larger against the russet hues of dusk.

  “Then you are going to…”

  “I still have a few years left. But yes, that is the blessing of our covenant.” Mira touched the insignia strapped high on her throat.

  Tahn marveled. All his life he’d wanted to do little more than reach the Change so that he could be taken seriously, could have his choices matter, could find a girl … “Maybe it’s the Hollows in me, but it doesn’t sound like much of a bargain. I would think long life a better trade for your service.”

  “Such is a common view in mankind. And it is not that I don’t value my life. But my spirit won’t ever have to suffer a reckoning for the stain of misdeeds as one who experiences the Change will. The undying life after this world will be sweeter for that.” In the soft shadows of the failing light, her face looked peaceful.

  Tahn gathered the image of her in that moment to hold in his mind.

  “Perhaps think of this, Tahn, when the Sheason tells you to watch after your choices. You will encounter the Change, and live past it. And I will tell you this: Our coming to you has much to do with you remaining as free of stain as you are able.” She looked away from the approaching bird for a moment to get Tahn’s attention.

  He’d never spoken to a girl or woman like this, except for maybe Wendra. “How do I know what stain is, then?”

  She showed him a third smile, a smile he thought (and hoped) held intimate suggestions. “Stain has much to do with what one holds as true.”

  Impetuously, Tahn kissed Mira. No stain there, he thought. And his heart pounded harder over that moment of time than any other he could recall, and was worth every bit of the embarassment and awkwardness that ensued, as he had no words to follow it with.

  Mira, for her part, did not withdraw, but looked back at him with a mix of understanding and approval and amusement—but was not, he thought, dismissive.

  The bird began to drop toward them. Tahn hefted a stone to chase it away, but Mira put a gentle hand over his to lower his arm. He thrilled at her touch, though he was a bit confused. She then raised her other arm, and the raven lit upon it, cawing into the twilight.

  “Do you also have some husbandry gift I don’t know about?” Tahn laughed a bit as the bird shifted around to look at him.

  Mira shook her head. “It is a message from home.”

  “But there’s nothing tied to its feet.” Tahn looked more closely to be sure he hadn’t missed it.

  “The bird itself and the dark color of its feathers are the harbingers of this news.” The look in Mira’s eyes changed a third time that night, not the quick, appraising cast, nor the softer faraway look Tahn had just seen. This was the look of grief, and the difficult choices that often follow it.

  “What does it mean?”

  “My sister, the Far queen, has passed this life. It means I have a choice of my own to make. And you may have to finish this journey without me.” She said it with new weight in her voice, as one mourning more than mere death. Mira cast the bird back into the sky and left Tahn alone to watch it wheel away north and east.

  * * *

  The city of Bollogh at night reminded Braethen of stories he’d read of the first years after war had ended. The Sheason led him past fires burning at street corners and down alleys crowded with carts where mothers huddled close to their children to keep them warm. The reek of waste was cloying. Braethen thought Vendanj meant either to conceal their movements by navigating these byways or else to put experience to the tales in Braethen’s mind.

  The Sheason spoke not a word until they came upon an ordinary door set in a far quarter of the city, situated in another remote byway. “Tether your horse and follow close.”

  Braethen did so, and stepped into the building. He could see nothing save a sliver of dim light beneath the door they’d just entered.

  A moment later, the Sheason lit a lamp and went to the room’s single window. He opened the shutter and placed the lamp on the sill. He then seated himself and indicated a chair for Braethen to do the same.

  In silence they remained sitting long enough for Braethen to recite the cycle of Promise poems—which he did silently—before a third man entered the room, closed the shutter, and took up the lamp. He went directly to Vendanj, and the two clasped hands, interlocking their last fingers in a cryptic token Braethen couldn’t make out.

  “This way,” the stranger said.

  They passed through a locked door, where the man used three different keys to open three different locks. Once in the farthest interior, where no windows stood, he turned, drew back his cloak, and Braethen finally saw the sodalist emblem at the man’s throat.

  “Braethen, this is Edias Faledriel, sodalist of Bollogh.” Vendanj nodded to the man in acknowledgment.

  “It’s good to know you,” Braethen said.

  Edias tried to share the token w
ith Braethen, but the would-be sodalist’s hand and fingers made a bad job of it, fumbling unfamiliarly. Edias looked at Vendanj for explanation.

  “In a moment,” the Sheason said. “First, where is Palonas? I expected him to be with you.”

  Edias showed weary, lamenting eyes. “He was executed three days ago by order of the League of Civility. They’ve established a strong contingent here.”

  “For what—”

  “It’s worse,” Edias cut in. “Palonas was the last.”

  Vendanj’s eyes darkened. “Tell me!”

  “Four there were at last harvest. But in the half cycle since, there has been much disease here. Karoon, Celenti, and Sahlieda were all found to have offered aid by the Will to the sick or dying. Their punishments came without trial.” Edias walked to the wall of the inner room and lifted the lamp to it.

  Braethen came close and read. A list of names too long to count had been carefully graven in a slab of marble mounted on the wall.

  “Once a staging post for service and armies to march or defend the south,” Edias said with sadness, “Bollogh has now lost every servant to the last. And here”—he moved the lamp to the right—“are the names of the sodalists who defended them.”

  Braethen followed the light and saw a few names recently carved. “And these?” he asked.

  Edias’s own anger and fear caught in his voice. “These are those sodalists bound to the Sheason whose names I’ve just given you. When they sought to memorialize them in public for their service and sacrifice, the League petitioned the ruling seat to try them as accomplices. Our lord is a weak man, and capitulated. These sodalists were executed for association with the Sheason to whom they were bound.”

  Braethen felt his legs go weak. He’d read of sodalists killed defending the lives of Sheason in the bitter tides of war. He’d read of long service and toil without recognition. But in the histories he’d somehow missed the writing of names on a wall of the dead whose only crime was memorializing another. Just now, he wasn’t sure it hadn’t been there, but if it had, his eyes were too enamored of the dream to have remembered it.

  Vendanj stepped forward and retrieved the lamp from Edias. “Which is why we have come. Braethen wishes to be bound to me as a sodalist.”

  Braethen’s knees buckled, nearly dropping him to the floor.

  Vendanj looked at him sharply, and Braethen could only think of the disappointment he’d seen in his father’s face when he’d told A’Posian that he would not follow the author’s way, that instead he meant to meet destiny head on, meant to become a sodalist. But at this moment, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do.

  His choice proved immaterial. Edias did not hestitate. He stepped close to Braethen and reached out to him, forcing Brathen’s fingers into the handshake token of the Sodality. “Repeat after me: Change is inevitable and necessary, but the traditions of our fathers need to be preserved. Someone must watch. Someone must remember. Someone must defend. And some must die.”

  His study had been incomplete. Or was it another part of his dream that he’d selectively removed: And some must die.

  Braethen stood on a threshold. He might be able to go back from here; he could retrace his steps to the Hollows. He certainly knew enough to be an author. His father would be so proud if he changed his mind. And this … this oath. The names on the wall. Killed only for memorializing …

  Was following Ogea’s encouragements of Braethen’s dream worth this?

  Braethen looked up at Edias, words caught in his throat. Vendanj stared at him, and for the first time Braethen could see neither contempt nor satisfaction in the Sheason’s gaze. In the stillness, Braethen listened to the hiss of the lamp, his heart pounding. If he crossed this threshold, there was no turning back. Even so, he might fail, and then the long years of his hope would have been utterly wasted.

  A loud crash erupted behind him. Braethen jerked his hand from its union with Edias and saw three men in deep russet cloaks storm into the room, swords raised: the League!

  Braethen tried to move, but his legs were still little use to him, and he fell against the marble list of the dead and slid to the floor. Edias jumped past him, a short sword suddenly in his hands. The last sodalist of Bollogh stepped into the breach and stopped two hammer strokes meant for Vendanj that the Sheason had not expected and—for Braethen’s coin—would not have survived. One blow Edias turned away, the other he took full in the chest.

  Vendanj recoiled, his hands rising with darkfire, when Edias slayed both the leagueman closest to the Sheason before falling to the floor, blood gushing from his chest. The last leagueman raised a whistle to bring reinforcements, but never got it to his lips. His face melted first, followed by his head and shoulders, before he fell backward out of the inner room.

  The smell of charred flesh and the bitter tang of blood rose quickly. The single lamp still burned near Braethen, who watched the smacking lips of the sodalist who’d tried to swear him in.

  Then, looking up at the Sheason, he saw a look of disappointment that hit him powerfully, reminding him of an ache from the past that he mentally fought to push away.

  He couldn’t do this. His dream was a fancy that boys read to create games in the forest when the summer days were full upon the Hollows.

  Then …

  He remembered a crystal goblet.

  A small, painful moment.

  A moment when the disappointment he saw in his father’s face had touched him, scarred him, in a way he had never forgotten. He loved A’Posian, and he loved the ideal of the Sodality. Those things had been in conflict in him for a long time. Would he now show disregard for the choice that caused him to turn his back on his father’s path—the author’s way?

  Later, he would record this moment of his life, for the strength of will it seeded in him when brought to a moment of last things: Here, where Braethen knew the Sheason had believed the names of the dead and the severity of the call would scare him back to his books; here, where awful circumstance had raised on the Sheason’s face a look of disappointment that Braethen would die to disprove.

  With the image of that crystal goblet in his mind, Braethen crawled to Edias, took his bloody hand in the token, and repeated the words to the last: “… some must die.”

  A bloody smile came to Edias’s lips before he gasped his final breath. Braethen stood, looked at Vendanj, and said, “We should go before others arrive.” The look on the Sheason’s face remained inscrutable, but that beat disdain or disappointment.

  * * *

  Wendra rubbed her stomach with her free hand in what had become a habit during the days she carried her child. Sutter wondered if she was even aware she was doing it. He thought perhaps the motion comforted her, and he decided he would never bring it to her attention.

  But there remained a topic he’d tried to talk to her about many times. And he hoped maybe now she would finally speak openly with him about it.

  “How are you?” he began.

  Wendra’s gaze remained distant. “Thank you for your concern, Sutter. I will be all right.”

  Sutter nodded. “I know you’ve not wanted to talk about it. But I can’t seem to get away from it. You know how I feel about you—”

  “You’re not even through your Change yet,” she said, smiling.

  “Yes, yes. I’m melura, sure. But … I want to set things right, Wendra. The man who … the man who … He needs to be held responsible for what he did. And I want to be the one to put his name before the townsmen.”

  Abruptly, Sutter could see from the look on her face that he had unwittingly evoked in her a painful memory, and he wished he hadn’t brought it up. She looked at him, seeming to understand his desire to help, but shook her head.

  “You don’t have to do anything. Just tell me his name. Tell me where I can find him.” Sutter paused. Still she said nothing. But something in her eyes told him that however awful that rape was, something about Wendra’s violation went beyond a moment of sexual violence. He aske
d one last time. “Wendra, I believe your father would have agreed with me. Would you tell him if he were alive?”

  At that, she stopped shaking her head, a different look on her face. Then her eyes softened. “If you want to do something for me, make me laugh, Sutter. That’s the strength I like best about you. Here, sing me this. Your voice is awful.”

  She got out the songbox she’d retrieved before they’d fled the Hollows and opened it to its tune. All the while, she continued to stroke her belly. As the night around them deepened and grew colder, they lay upon the ground, huddling close together for warmth, and Sutter made his usual bad effort at song. And she did laugh, the sound of it musical in the midst of so many other unmusical things.

  Wendra’s tragedy and her quiet resolve to stand by her brother were the only things Sutter didn’t think he could find a joke for. And somehow that felt just fine.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Questions and Dreams

  The Sheason returned with Braethen at dark hour. They rode north and east the rest of that night and all the next day. The vegetation on the plains grew variegated, with low cedar and sage that rose up to only the height of a small man; tall bushy pines bearing large cones; stands of aspen and great oak reaching heavenward—the Hollows were long behind them. In all directions, the vastness of the sky stretched down to the horizon where it met the earth, like two halves of one whole.

  As untouchable as were the reaches of the sky, so was the earth underfoot tangible. The sky spoke of the possibility and the earth of reality. It reminded Tahn of the stories of Palamon, the first Sheason, wrestling Jo’ha’nel, first of Quietus’s Draethmorte. Great ones and gods locked in conflict.

  Palamon told of the strength in the arm of man, Jo’ha’nel the energy of what may be. Tahn’s thoughts turned upon the necessity of both, how one could not exist without the other.

  But he also wondered, beneath the lasting sky and above the abiding, patient feel of earth beneath him, if men could live if they had only one or the other.