Everything went black, and panic struck him. I am back in the darkness! He gripped tight his sword, trying to remember the words he’d spoken the first time, words that had allayed his fear. He could not remember, and his heart pounded. Then the blackness receded a shade. I am a fool! It was not the same emptiness as before; the interior of the home simply lay cloaked in darkness. The stark change in light had left Braethen temporarily blind. He swung his head back and forth, trying to fix his sight on something. Shapes and shadows seemed to dance around him. He jerked his blade toward them in rigid strokes.
“Easy, sodalist,” Vendanj’s voice called out of the blackness. “We are alone. Grant is not here.”
As Braethen’s eyes acclimated to the dark, Mira came through the door, her swords in her hands, but lowered to her sides. She looked directly at Braethen, then at his sword. “Your hands are too rigid to use that weapon,” she said with reproach. She moved past him into the back rooms of the house. Braethen sheathed his blade with an embarrassed smile. Vendanj paid him no attention, studying a small pile of documents left on the table.
Inside the home, furnishings sat mute, and a cooler, settled air eased the heat in Braethen’s cheeks. Shielded from the sun outside, the trappings of the home nevertheless appeared sun-worn: A wash basin atop a table; a book cabinet largely empty, save for three books lying flat in a pile on the uppermost shelf; a rough table attended by four rough chairs; and open cupboards with a few dishes. No art adorned the walls, only bow-pegs and a narrow weapons rack near the door. A graying rug, its pattern faded to almost nothing, covered much of the floor. Then Braethen saw something fixed to the wall near the hall to the back rooms. His eyes had fully adjusted, and he could make out an elaborate sigil scrawled at the top of what looked like an edict.
When he drew close, his jaw dropped at what he read:
This writ shall serve as witness that Emerit Denolan SeFeery has willfully committed treason against the stewardship entrusted to him and against the right order of progress as held by the High Court of Judicature and the League of Civility. It is hereby declared that Denolan SeFeery is unfit for citizenship in the free city of Recityv.
In the interest of justice he is thus permanently exiled into the emptiness known as the Scar. With the exception of the First Seat at the regent’s Table, he alone will know the trust this sentence represents.
Any known to abet Denolan SeFeery will be considered a traitor and judged accordingly.
From this day forward, Denolan SeFeery will no longer be referred to with the emerit honors of his former office. Should he ever return to the free walls of Recityv, he shall be punished by immediate execution.
A dozen names marked the bottom of the page. The parchment itself drooped with sepia tiredness. Only the seal at the top indicated the official nature of the document.
“Emerit,” Braethen repeated with awe. He recalled that an Emerit was a warrior with fealty sworn to someone of high station, one whose physical prowess might only be surpassed by his keen intellect. It was a title accorded to only the greatest fighters by the highest mantle of government.
As he spoke the word, Mira returned from the rear hallway. Hearing it seemed to touch a personal wound in her.
Braethen hardly noticed. “Was this Denolan SeFeery the same man? Was he also Grant? And if so, why this other name?”
The Sheason ignored him. “Someone left in a hurry. The ink here is not yet set.”
“There is no one in the house,” Mira confirmed. “The beds are made, a change of clothes in each room. Oil lamps, and recently burned by the smell of it. A journal on each night table.” She came into the room to stand next to Vendanj. “No one left the house while I watched. And I’ve seen no footprints.” She sheathed her swords and began inspecting the common area.
The Sheason gingerly touched the top sheaf of parchment spread on the table.
“He’s rewriting the Charter,” he said in a whisper.
The sound of it chilled Braethen’s blood. He’d only heard the Charter spoken of once, and then it was when A’Posian had been deep into a bottle of Winemaker Solom’s brandy. The things he’d said came out in incoherent phrases that sounded like dream talk. But Braethen gleaned that the Charter preceded the Tract of Desolation in age and exceeded it in consequence, and that it came from the hands of the First Ones themselves.
It was believed the Charter had been wrought in the Language of the Covenant, setting forth founding principles and privileges governed by universal law, granting and sustaining life itself in the world. Many accepted the reality of the Tract of Desolation as an instrument fortifying the veil and holding the Bourne at bay. But most scholars, if they mentioned the Charter at all, referred to it as folklore, a romantic notion that no longer seemed reasonable, certainly not an actual document. More like a set of ancient beliefs, but some so powerful that they existed in the fabric of life, even if generations who lived by its tenets no longer had direct knowledge of it.
Braethen had come to think the Charter now lived in the stories retold by readers and authors to share beliefs and give meaning to what men do, what they die for.
But the way Vendanj said it, Braethen found himself believing it was something more than he had thought. For whatever the Charter may have been, that Grant had begun writing it anew was surely a harbinger of change.
Did this man Grant have the power to create such a document? Or was his an act of heresy?
“There is nothing for us here,” Vendanj finally said. “There is light left to travel by. And we must either find water or make haste to the edge of the Scar. Come.”
Mira swept to the door before Vendanj could leave. She crouched and laid a nimble hand on the sword at her hip. She darted out, Vendanj a step behind. Braethen took a last look around. Something tugged at him about the home. Perhaps the edict on the wall, or the stark simplicity of the furnishings, or the pages left on the rough table that were being written in this far place—somehow, he thought, an act of belief that did not belong in the abandoned environs of the Scar. What man wrote such a thing?
Braethen strode to the door, and his knees locked up when he nearly walked into Vendanj’s back.
“Visitors,” a voice said from somewhere ahead.
Braethen stepped to the Sheason’s side. A man stood silhouetted against the sun. Braethen raised a hand over his eyes, but the light was too low against the western horizon to be blocked out. The man’s shadow fell in a long line toward them. Braethen instinctively began to draw his sword. Vendanj put a hand on his wrist. “Hold,” he said in his softest voice.
“Indeed, sodalist,” the man said. “A three-ring man and a fleetfoot as traveling companions, and you are first to draw. Brazen or foolish, I don’t know, but you wear your sword like new shoes.”
Vendanj stared ahead directly into the sun. “We have news.”
“Of course,” the man answered, a hint of condescension in his voice. “What else could convince someone to come so far from home? And your news, Sheason, you believe it somehow involves me.” The man took a few steps closer. Braethen could see the dark brown of his weathered, sun-worn skin, and the deep lines at the corners of his eyes.
“I do.”
“And of names,” he said. “Will you give me yours, or will there be lies and secrecy?”
“This is Mira of Naltus. And this is Braethen of the Hollows.” Vendanj lifted a hand toward the man in greeting. “And you know my name.”
Braethen watched the stranger frown, but the man with the sun at his back did not move.
“I am dead to you,” the other finally said. “Why come now?”
“Because a new age may call men to forget their past,” Vendanj replied. “Will you become what they accused you of being?”
A dark look passed across the man’s countenance. Braethen felt the same chill he had felt inside the home. It was more the sameness of those feelings than anything else that left no doubt that they had found Grant. The man’s eyes might hav
e inspired fear in a Bar’dyn. The expression in his face pierced Braethen and made him suddenly aware of his own ingratitude and naivete. He never wanted to see that look again.
Vendanj left his hand up to be received in welcome, but Grant made no effort to take it. Braethen felt a certain respect in addition to the wariness he already had for this resident of the Scar, who gave no deference to even a Sheason.
“Leave me be.” His words sounded as both command and plea, and, Braethen thought, resignation.
“I cannot.” Vendanj began slowly walking toward Grant. “I will not. You know better even than I that sometimes a man must speak. And you must hear what I have to say, just as Helaina needed to hear your words long ago.”
Mira moved with the Sheason, more slowly than Braethen ever remembered her moving. Her hand rested on her sword in an unthreatening way, but he knew she could have it out in less time than Braethen could think to draw his own blade.
“Leave your trained dog behind,” Grant said without anger or resentment.
Braethen cringed at the insult to Mira. She stopped, an even expression on her face. She was close enough, Braethen thought, to take Grant down if he moved against the Sheason.
The sun now loomed large and low in the sky, a great russet orb. As Braethen watched, Vendanj stopped before the deeply tanned, leathery face of the other, and studied it as though he were suddenly unsure this man was indeed Grant. Several days’ growth of beard peppered the man’s jaw; the Sheason scrutinized his brow and nose and shoulders. Finally, Grant took Vendanj by the hand, the grip unfamiliar to Braethen. The Sheason looked down at their united hands.
“I’m glad to see you, Denolan.”
Grant’s head drew back in a start. “I’ve not heard that name in a long time. You are fortunate we stand so far from the ears of court pages. Using it might earn you a night in the cuffs.” A long pause stretched between them. In a saddened whisper, he finally said, “Don’t use the name. It is not who I am anymore. I am only Grant.”
“Your new name should be a proud one,” Vendanj replied. “You were right to speak against the injustice of the council.”
Grant let go of Vendanj’s hand. “Surely you don’t bear clemency. So what brings you here?”
The Sheason looked intently into the other’s face. “No lies or secrecy,” he began. “But let us talk later, after we have retrieved our horses.”
Grant smiled at some inward joke, but it looked unnatural on his face, unnatural in the Scar. Braethen thought that these two were now indistinguishable, reflections of one another, and mirth simply didn’t belong to either.
Grant raised a hand. Four young men and two young women rose from the depression that surrounded the home. They ran to where Grant stood. Each of them, skin as deeply tanned as Grant’s, wore a sword and carried a bow. All had long hair tied back with strips of cloth. Mira showed no surprise, but Braethen wondered if she knew these six had been so close. The Far observed them closely as they came. Before they moved again, she would know each one’s physical limitations and weaknesses, simply by watching them run, their stance, the movement of their eyes, and the way they held their weapons. They weren’t much younger than Mira, and they wore the same stern look he saw on Grant’s face. The Far seemed to appreciate them in a way Braethen had not seen her admire anyone before.
“See to their horses,” Grant ordered. He pointed in the direction from which Braethen and Vendanj had come. “Take water and salve.”
The six left at a run, and Grant turned toward the house. “There are questions in your eyes, Sheason. Let’s answer them and send you on your way. You don’t belong here.” The man brushed past Braethen without acknowledging him.
Inside his home, Grant lit a table lamp and started a fire against the coming of night. From a hidden basin beneath the rug he drew a jug and poured them each a cup of cool water. He waited while every cup was drained, then refilled them. He left the jug with Braethen and took a seat beside the fire.
Even with the warming color of firelight, Braethen still felt the chill on the back of his neck. He continued to glance sidelong at the aging parchment tacked to the wall.
“You bring a novice sodalist out of the Hollows,” Grant said. “Does he realize what danger he must be in, simply traveling with a Sheason?”
“You might ask me,” Braethen said before Vendanj could answer.
“First to draw and to speak,” Grant said. “Well then, let us hear it.”
Braethen felt Mira and Vendanj’s eyes fall on him. Another awkward smile twisted Grant’s lips. Braethen looked at the wall again, where the edict had been placed. “I don’t know your story,” Braethen said. “It is not in any of the books I have read, and no reader has ever come to the Hollows and shared it.” He looked at Grant, whose gaze now held the same black severity he’d seen before. Braethen quickly looked toward the fire to avoid the stare. “You are condemned in the Court of Judicature, but apparently not by the Order of Sheason. You feel free to insult a woman, but are glad to revive a horse. And you stock your home for defense, attracting striplings to yourself like a rogue captain, but there is no war here because there is no life here.”
“A stripling calls another child a stripling,” Grant said, a chuckle escaping him.
Braethen resumed. “I know there is danger. But it is danger of losing the life I have. It appears to be no less than what you have done in your own past.” He looked at the exile order on the wall.
Grant’s laughter caught in his throat. “Astute words for a boy just out of his books. Before the three-ringed man and his fleetfoot ask me what they must, let me answer you.” He pointed a finger at Braethen. “I chose to be here. That parchment on the wall reminds me of that. It is an ugly place, and not for any of the reasons you think. But because I am here, those striplings you mention are not sold into the grip of Quietgiven. And while these youths are here, I show them how to keep from having their own choices taken from them.” Grant sat back, his face relaxing again. “And it must come by physical defense; all is coming to that. Or perhaps you knew this, since you wear a sword of your own and were prepared to draw it against me.”
None of them spoke, and the fire hissed in the silence.
Against the quiet hum of burning wood, Vendanj asked, “Then why redraw the Charter?”
Grant gave Vendanj a bleak, unsmiling look. “Perhaps only to define what we have become, what lies ahead for us when the Hand is opened and the scourge of the Bourne spreads to the farthest reaches.”
“For such a condition no Charter needs to be written,” Vendanj countered.
“Since you are here only once I will tell you.” He stood and went to the table where the parchments lay open. “It is my primrose in this desert. You can’t imagine what it is like to write these words, and not believe they are possible. But not writing them is like admitting the League of Exigents is right. And if that were so, then I could not remain here.” His eyes seemed to look far away. He muttered, “And the cradle would be more merciful as a casket than as a promise of life.”
“What evidence have you that the Bourne will ever spill through the Hand?” Vendanj asked, eyeing the documents beneath Grant’s fingers.
“You,” the man said.
Again no one spoke, the only sound the popping of sap in the flames. Mira stood as still as a statue. Outside, the sound of hooves approached. Grant went to the door and gave a few instructions. Three of the six ran back into the dusk; the other three came inside and stood back near the hall entrance.
Vendanj gave the newcomers a look. “Can they be trusted?”
“As you would trust me,” Grant answered.
The Sheason appeared dubious, but turned to Grant. “The regent has called for the filling of every seat at the council table … and for a Convocation of Seats.”
Grant frowned, unimpressed. “There’s never been a regent who didn’t want to fulfill that prophecy. But the words of seers don’t like to be forced to fruition before it is time
.”
“Perhaps,” Vendanj agreed. “But it is not only Vohnce that answers the call.”
“And the nations of the sea, those across the Aela, the northern kingdoms past Ir-Caul?” Grant asked. “Do they care about the Second Promise any more than the First? Do they even remember? Those are old alliances, seasons without memory behind us. It is political posturing of the same brand that brought me here. Your Court of Judicature will fatten themselves and squabble over appointments to military stewardships and land resources, and those are the ones that even attend. The rest defend their own farthest boarders if they can, and have no use for convocations.”
“You may be right. But it is not all the same.… A cry has begun to end the Song of Suffering sung from the Tract of Desolation.”
That statement silenced the room.
This secret the Sheason had kept was one Braethen wished he had never heard. This song, sung from the lips of a select few, remained one of the few gifts of the First Ones, a protection against the Quiet. The singing of that song kept the Veil in place, and the dark races and creations of the One sealed away from the light of men … or, at least, was supposed to. From his books, Braethen had gathered that the Tract only became efficacious when rendered in vocal melody … the Song of Suffering.
Finally, Grant asked, “Who raises this cry?”
“It passes on the lips of people in the street,” Vendanj said. “But even there it sounds like the League.”
“Ah,” Grant grunted.
“There are Quietgiven deep in the land,” Mira added. “As near as the southern perimeter of the Scar. They came at our heels not four days ago.”
“Nearer, fleetfoot, than that.” Grant sat himself back by his fire. He watched the flame a moment. “You were not hard to anticipate, Far. You’ve likely seen the plodding tracks of Bar’dyn in hardpan dirt. They are near, but they won’t engage us. They either fear us … or they use us as bait.” Grant shifted his attention to Braethen. “How long before they come through that door, sodalist? Is that the kind of danger you speak about, the life you esteem highly enough to hold your sword beside a three-ring man?”
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