“What of this ability you mention?” the leader of the Given asked. “You demand an unheard-of price. I must know the truth of this to grant what you ask.”
“Sing him something, Wendra,” Jastail said, a near hint of fatherly pride in his request.
The request caught her entirely off guard. “What?”
“A song, let’s have a song.” He turned, irritation creasing his brow.
She looked at the highwayman in pain and confusion. At that moment, with Jastail bartering their lives to Bar’dyn, the marks of childbirth shown openly to bear witness to her fertility, and Penit squeezing her hand so hard in fear that it ached, the idea of singing a song insulted her. Jastail wanted her to perform like a trained animal. And somehow this would raise her stock for the highwayman’s purse. She gritted her teeth, seething with hatred. Then she startled herself to find the intimations of a melody in her after all. It boiled up from her belly like acid. She found it suddenly hard to breathe, and began to pant. Every lie Jastail had told Penit had here been laid bare, and Wendra held the thought of the boy’s broken trust in her mind until she felt herself losing control.
“Don’t make me use the boy to encourage your song,” Jastail warned.
“Enough,” the Bar’dyn said, shuffling mighty feet. “We did not come to trade today, highwayman. We will take what we like and leave you to hope for mercy in the seasons ahead.”
Jastail snapped his head back to the Bar’dyn leader. “Hold there, Etromney.” Jastail raised a finger in objection, then used it to point toward the trees. “Do not forget that I come not alone. A party of men will descend that ridge the moment you prove … unscrupulous.”
The Bar’dyn did not bother to look. Instead, it came a step closer to Jastail, narrowing its eyes. Wendra recoiled, pulling Penit back. The little clearing tensed with the imminence of death. “I could pinch your head from your neck, grub. You are part of the abomination; I would sooner watch you die than listen to you lie.”
“Have I ever come alone before?” Jastail asked with less confidence, staring up into the broad, thick musculature of the Bar’dyn’s face. “My bounty ought to honor you.”
The Bar’dyn stared, then finally looked toward the trees. “Done.”
“Wait,” Wendra cried. “He is lying. No one will come.” She let go Penit’s hand and stepped forward. Her legs betrayed her, and she fell to the ground. She immediately sat up on her knees amid a cloud of dust.
Jastail whirled, lashing her face with his fist. “Silence, cow! You’ve not been given permission to speak!”
Wendra swallowed blood, her vision swimming with tears risen suddenly from the blow. She reached into her dress and pulled free the parchment, clenching it tightly in her hand. “At Galadell he left a note for these men he says will come. But I found the note and took it, hiding it until today. You see! No party is coming. He trades alone today.” She raised the note toward the Bar’dyn.
From blurry eyes she saw Jastail raise his hand again. Before he could hit her, the Bar’dyn swept its arm across the highwayman’s back and drove him savagely to the ground. “You lie and then abuse our merchandise.” Jastail remained on the ground, spitting dirt from his mouth as the Bar’dyn took the scrap of parchment from Wendra’s hand. Revulsion rose in her throat at the touch of the rough skin. So close, she caught the scent of carrion on the creature. Etromney examined the note, then let it fall, landing in Wendra’s lap.
“She creates this lie to preserve herself,” Jastail quickly offered. “And regardless, I have brought you woman and child. I have brought Leiholan.” Jastail crawled to Wendra and wrested from her the parchment the Ta’Opin had made for her of her song. He held it out to Etromney. “Please … take me with you.”
The highwayman’s request stunned Wendra. She’d tried to make it a threat over endfast, and now the trader wanted to go with the Bar’dyn. Perhaps the only thrill left to him was gambling with his own life.
The Bar’dyn leader snatched the parchment from Jastail’s hand and returned to his band, speaking to them in a tongue Wendra did not know. He then paused to look over the rendering of Wendra’s song. With each pass of his eyes over the page, Wendra thought she saw a change in the Bar’dyn’s countenance. At last, Etromney lowered the written song and whispered to his companions. Immediately, two of the Bar’dyn came toward her and Penit. Wendra’s eyes still stung from her tears, but she scrambled back on her hands and feet. Penit stood transfixed as the second Bar’dyn lifted him up and placed him on one great shoulder.
“Please, Etromney!” Jastail spoke stridently. “I’ve much to offer. There are things I know.”
At that, the Bar’dyn stopped and seemed to consider. He then motioned to one of his party, who went to Jastail and helped him to his feet. The highwayman clutched his own shoulder with one hand as he strode to join the other Bar’dyn.
Before her, the Quietgiven moved more quickly, catching her and grasping her wrist with one clawed hand. With a jerk, the Bar’dyn brought her to her feet, turning to drag her back to the others. Wendra blinked the dust and tears from her eyes and saw Penit gulping air from his perch as he fought the need to cry. In that instant, Wendra recalled a conversation with a scop on songs sung from the bottom of pain and felt a hundred moments of isolation and frustration and dark melodies coalesce in her chest and rush like a flood through the gates of her teeth.
The song burst from her abruptly, unbidden—pained, tortured sounds that ascended in powerful crescendos, notes turning in and over one another in sharp dissonance. The dark song issued from her lungs in a series of screams that rasped like moving stones without the cushion of mortar.
The terrible song ripped through her, from her; yet she listened to it and watched through eyes that saw nothing but white and black, the world a stark mosaic. She saw the skin of the Bar’dyn begin to blacken, smoke rising from it. The beasts yawped with their chesty voices, a few dropping and rolling through the dirt and brush.
The strains of her song filled the entire meadow with a mighty roar. With every note she grew angrier, the contrast in her vision more severe. The black deepened, white glowed in fiery brilliance. She sang to bring it all to darkness, to divest everything of its light. Distantly, she felt her arms and legs tremble with the power rushing from her mouth. Her skin burned, but the feeling of it pleased her, and she smiled around her terrible song as it shot forth into the meadow and fell upon the Bar’dyn.
The glory of the harsh sounds enveloped her. At the sight of Penit—a white form on a dark canvas—the timbre of her awful song moderated slightly. And in an instant, she could not remember his name. She recognized the shape, the rounding of his chin, the thin chest and legs, but his name was gone to her. The sadness and frustration of forgetting the child welled up in her, cycling toward her song like a reprise, when a sweet, low counterpoint joined her. Wendra whirled toward it, seeing a shining light in the shape of a tall man. She recognized this, too, but had no idea who it might be. The harmony coming from the figure soothed her, eased her own melody, reshaped it, and she found herself naturally working to follow the progression of his simple, beautiful tune. Some phrases threatened to ride away from the new song, to take her back to the soothing certainty of singing everything black. But the gentle insistence of the countermelody assured her, guided her. Gradually, what she felt and heard became one, color coming again to the things she saw.
When their melody joined in a soft unison, she saw Seanbea walking toward her, a paternal smile on his full lips. She sang until her breath forsook her, and collapsed into the Ta’Opin’s arms, her dark song at an end.
* * *
Wendra woke to the creak of axles and the jounce of hard wheels over stones in the road. A sour taste lingered in her mouth, like curdled milk and soot. Slowly, she opened her eyes to see a leafy world passing lazily by overhead. The slant of the sun said that night would soon come, and the thought displeased her, flashes of the darkness in her vision when last she had sung super
imposed over the branches above. She then felt the press of a warm, small hand clinging to her own. Adjusting her head on the blanket rolled for her pillow, she saw Penit sitting in the wagon bed beside her. The boy stared into the forest beyond, a troubled look giving his young face an age beyond its years.
Wendra squeezed Penit’s hand, drawing his attention.
“Hey, she’s awake!” he hollered at Seanbea, climbing to his knees and scooting forward to huddle over her. “You passed out,” Penit confirmed. “Are you okay now?”
Wendra smiled at the concern written on the child’s brow. “I’m fine, but I could use some water.”
Penit kept hold of her hand while he reached forward and lifted a waterskin from a jumble of gear stowed to each side. He uncorked it for Wendra and raised it to her lips the way she had done for Balatin with her own small hands when her father had once taken ill. The connection of the two events eased the aching in her limbs as much as anything could. The water washed the foul taste from her mouth, and she rested back on the blanket. A sudden thought plagued her and she tried to sit up, but her stomach cramped, forcing her back before Penit could do the job.
“The Bar’dyn?” she managed, coughing the word.
“Mostly dead,” Penit answered. “The rest crawled beyond the trees before you stopped singing.”
The memory of her song came back to her, the forceful, angry melody inviting her to give voice to it again. But her heart felt none of her former rage, and the feeling passed.
“What about Jastail?” She tried to sit again, the thought of the highwayman suddenly making her anxious.
Penit remained silent. It was Seanbea who replied. “When his deal was broken, he made his way quickly to the ridge and escaped your song.”
The Ta’Opin’s deep, resonant voice soothed her like honeyed tea. It lilted and trailed in easy lines, unlike the horrible evenness and clipped speech of the Bar’dyn’s own deep tones. She wanted him to keep talking so she could listen, to breathe in the music of his words. But he had happened upon them and saw what she had done. The realization that he had witnessed her destuctive song made her hope he kept silent.
“He won’t come after us,” Penit assured her. “He’s afraid of you now. And Seanbea is with us. He’s taking us to Recityv so I can run in the Lesher Roon.” Penit smiled, again the sunny child she loved, as if untouched by all he had endured.
But he had spoken a painful truth: Some part of her caused fear in the highwayman. She found she feared it, too. The silky invitation of the notes she’d sung had enticed her, even as she knew that they led to a state of being where she would only ever see darkness when she made the song.
Wendra also realized that Penit still clung to one of the lies Jastail had told, that Penit would take part in some kind of race once they reached Recityv. She considered correcting him, but wondered if Seanbea had offered the distraction to try and keep the boy preoccupied.
“The boy might win, too,” Seanbea added. “Saw him run to you when that Bar’dyn dumped him to the ground. He’s got quick feet.”
“What does he win?” Wendra asked.
She heard Seanbea swivel in his seat, as though he meant to see if she asked in jest.
Wendra looked back. “You mean there really is a race that will take place in Revityv? That wasn’t just something Jastail made up to trick Penit?”
“You really haven’t a notion, do you?” Seanbea said.
“I’ll get to meet the regent after all,” Penit exclaimed.
“True enough,” Seanbea began, the tone of a story about to be told filling his voice. “The Roon is an old custom, hardly anything more than a story … until the regent recalled the full council.” The wood of Seanbea’s bench creaked as he turned back to his driving. “King Sechen Baellor called the council at the height of the War of the Hand, when most of the nations had already fallen to the Quiet. He knew that many alliances had already been made with the Quietgiven, and the rest were likely to sign treaties with them in exchange for leniency in seasons to come. In his own kingdom of Vohnce, he felt an urgent need for action. But he didn’t want decisions made by an unbalanced council, where nobles gathered to strut and preen. So he posted a notice that one member of the working class, any man or woman that would serve, could be raised by the people to take a seat among the rest.” Seanbea paused and spoke to himself. “He was a good man.” Clearing his throat, he went on, “Anyway, he also declared that a child should sit among them in the council chamber, to give voice to the thoughts and fears of the children. His own offspring were excluded from running, but it was said that he trusted the honesty and instincts of his own son and daughter more than the counsel of his scholars and the other nobles.
“Many opposed the inclusion of a youth on the council, believing that the child would only express the views of his parents. Others disliked the idea because they weren’t sure how to fairly choose one representative from among the children.” Seanbea chucked good-naturedly. “The king considered a number of tests, but knew these would favor noble children who could afford tutors. Combat seemed inappropriate, and the king objected to the idea of children being coached to gather votes for themselves by going about to make speeches. So, he settled on a simple footrace. Some still grumbled because the older children would have a clear advantage, so the king limited the race to those twelve years of age and younger.”
Penit shook Wendra’s hand to get her to look at him. “I do run fast, you know. If I win, then maybe I can tell them all about the Bar’dyn. They can send their army to save your brother.”
Wendra felt a jab of memory at the mention of Tahn. She hoped he would be safe in Recityv by the time they got there.
“The palace walls still show the markers of the race course,” Seanbea continued. “Children who hear the story can be seen racing one another along those walls.” The Ta’Opin’s voice evened to a serious tone. “The regent has called a date for a running of the Lesher Roon … and she’s put out a call for the Convocation of Seats.”
Wendra chilled at the mention of it. “Why?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Seanbea replied. “I’ve been out visiting cities and towns, collecting instruments and looking for singers.” He gave her a knowing look. “The messenger birds came into the places I’ve been, and word of it spread fast.”
They were all quiet for a time, each seeming to think about what it could mean. The Ta’Opin started again, “But the Roon isn’t just a contest, boy. It means something to run that race. You’d do well to remember that.”
“I will,” Penit said, excitement still ringing in his words.
Wendra let the discussion of the race end, and she looked about her at the instruments and parchments pushed aside to make room for her. She remembered there being a great deal more in Seanbea’s wagon when she’d seen it a few nights before.
“What happened to your cargo?” she asked.
“My cargo is still in the wagon.” Seanbea answered, the sound of a smile on his face as clear as laughter.
“Yes, but not all of it,” Wendra persisted.
“Right you are,” the Ta’Opin conceded. “I had to stow some in the hills so that you could rest. But don’t you—”
“Seanbea, you can’t do that. Those instruments were old, they’ll—”
“—concern yourself. I’m still carrying an old instrument.” The wagon bench creaked. This time she cranked her head at an angle so she could see his face. “There’s nothing in this wagon as important as you, Anais. I think I knew it when you joined my song beside the fire. That’s why I pretended to leave, then tracked you into those mountains where the highwayman took you.” He paused, his voice then sounding far away. “I’ve not heard those sounds in my life. I’ve seen them written on parchment, different arrangements, but the same motifs, the same phrasings, the same mournful lines.”
“How could you have heard—”
“Music is a response, Anais,” he said reverently. “A response to what is
in our heart. There have been some who put those feelings to parchment. Not exactly the way you did, but enough that I recognized the sad beauty of them … the danger in them.”
He reined in and stopped the cart. He turned all the way around, putting his feet into the back of the wagon, and looked down at Wendra, commanding her attention. He knitted his fingers and leaned forward, bracing his arms on his knees. “You’ll want to listen close, Anais. Think back and you’ll probably remember a time when your songs seemed to do more than just tickle your tongue. A time when they did more, when they caused more. Don’t bother to tell me about it, and don’t try to deny it to yourself.”
Seanbea looked at Penit, as if trying to decide whether to go on. He gave the boy a wink. “What you do, what you are, is more an instrument than anything Descant is expecting me to bring. Never you mind the stuff I left behind. It’s covered and will keep. You, my girl, must do neither. The changes that prompt the regent to call a full council are likely the same that sent me into the land to find and haul these rusted items to Recityv. And now that I’ve seen Quietgiven so deep in the land, I’m almost sure of it. That they almost had you makes my blood cold.” He gave her a sympathetic look. “What I saw you do to them … You’ve never done it before, have you?”
“No,” she managed. Dark memories flared in her mind. She wondered if her song would have grown dark enough to steal Penit’s light. “I’m not even sure what happened.”
“I’ve never seen it,” Seanbea said. “But I’ve heard the stories. When I trained at Descant with the Maesteri, they warned us of it. But a thousand voices could gather notes to song and offer them as painfully as you and the world would not change its form a jot. This thing in you, Anais, is a rare music indeed. And music touches eternity.” The Ta’Opin reached down and placed his hand over her forehead. “But there are two eternities, Wendra; your song can inspire hope and lead men to a better tomorrow, or it can bring death and damnation. Having such power is a responsibility you must learn to shoulder. That is why we’re going to Recityv,” he concluded.
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