Tahn’s arrow struck the lead creature in the arm. Without slowing, the Bar’dyn plucked it away as if it was a mere splinter and let it fall beneath his feet. As Tahn drew again he heard weapons and bodies clash behind him. He thought he heard Sutter cry out, but had no time to check on Nails. He released again, aiming for the Bar’dyn’s head. The arrow caught the creature just below the eye. A maddened shriek tore from its throat. The second Bar’dyn raced past his wounded brother and surged into their camp, closing on Wendra and Penit.
As Tahn raised a third draw on the Given closest to his sister, Wendra sang a string of syllables in a sharply dissonant melody. The air began to shimmer, looking like a horizon baking in heat. As Wendra’s voice grew louder and more angered, the camp swirled. Blood began to flow from the first Bar’dyn’s eyes, nose, and ears. But it pushed on as though fighting a river current, moving with deadly intent toward Wendra. A moment later it thrust a massive fist toward Wendra’s neck and grasped her around the throat.
She ceased to sing. The shimmer in the air stopped, and the Bar’dyn’s sluggishness ended. Wendra struggled against the beast’s grip and was thrown to the ground on top of Penit. Tahn tried to retreat a few steps, but the two Bar’dyn slipped behind him and began to drive him away from the firelight. Tahn began to fire his arrows in a blur, as fast as all his speed and skill would let him. Some deflected off the Bar’dyns’ tough skin. Others found home, sticking in the creatures, who wailed as they were struck. Yet Tahn had the feeling that the Bar’dyn did not swing their weapons to kill. And still they came on, pushing him farther from the fire. Tahn realized they were isolating him from the others.
And he was out of arrows.
He looked over at Wendra. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing. Penit struggled to free himself from beneath her. Behind the Quietgiven herding Tahn, Mira and Grant descended on a Bar’dyn simultaneously, swords flashing in the weak light; the Given dropped in a heap. At their side, Sutter brandished his longsword in a huge, sweeping figure eight. His arms worked with fluid intensity as he drove one Bar’dyn back several paces. Another Bar’dyn tried to sideswipe Nails, but before it could land a blow, Braethen was there. A radiant white flash of blade arced in the darkness, followed by a hopeless cry where the Bar’dyn fell.
Mira and Grant parted and drew the advance of two more Given. The whistle of steel wielded by mighty arms sliced toward the Far. One arm went up, deflecting the blow, the other came directly after, catching the Bar’dyn in the neck. A gout of blood splashed Mira across the face.
A second, more cautious creature waited on Grant’s attack. It held a menacing ax, ready to swing. The exile outlasted the Bar’dyn’s patience, his sword held dangling at his side. The Given swung, its great ax descending like a judgment. Grant anticipated the move and leapt close to the Bar’dyn’s wide chest. In a furious thrust, the exile swung his sword up through the underside of the creature’s chin. The creature’s movement ceased immediately.
Tahn looked back at the Bar’dyn pushing him far from his friends. They appeared unconcerned about the deaths of their comrades. The drums continued to pound, filling the night with sound.
Tahn looked around. Where is Vendanj?
“I am I!” Out of nowhere, Braethen flashed into Tahn’s view. His battle cry erased the sound of the drums, and caused Tahn’s skin to tingle. With fury, the sodalist came at the Bar’dyn that were pushing Tahn farther away from camp. Sutter rushed to Braethen’s side. But before they could be of any help, arrows hit them in the legs and they both went down in a tumble.
Tahn stood alone.
Then something occurred to him.
He drew his empty bow, rehearsed the oldest words he knew, and aimed.
A look of recognition caught in the Bar’dyn eyes. “We did not choose this, Quillescent. Beware your own destruction if you first seek ours.” It spoke with a soothing intelligence that caught Tahn off guard.
In the next moment the camp grew still. Quiet.
The drums ceased.
All light dwindled; the fire guttered. Tahn’s own wakefulness seemed to ebb. An apparition cloaked in white, parting the two Given that separated Tahn from the others, floated in the air. Even the stars flickered, their immutable light straining in the shadow that surrounded the figure. Icy fear immobilized Tahn, and he dropped his bow. A willowy hand, draped in deep sleeves, rose. It came to point at Tahn. Tahn looked away. He thought he heard the whispers of a generation all rushing into his ears in an instant. With sudden, total weakness in his legs, he fell facefirst into the ground.
But almost immediately, an explosion of flame ripped the apparition apart, and there stood Vendanj, his arms extended toward Tahn. The Sheason swept his hands up toward the sky, and a wave of soil swallowed the last two Bar’dyn. The creatures fell, snatched down into the earth amid the grinding of rocks and twisted roots. They shrieked into the Soliel, their throaty voices calling wildly as they went until their mouths filled with dirt and sand that seemed to flow there intentionally to strangle their cries.
But in the sudden calm, before their mouths were no longer of use to them, one of the Bar’dyn looked up at Tahn with blank, scrutinizing eyes. “You still don’t understand, do you?” the Bar’dyn said, turning a brief look toward the ground where his dead comrades had been swallowed up. “You cannot win a war against an enemy who hasn’t anything to lose.”
Then its mouth was full and its eyes lost their life.
Vendanj rushed to Wendra’s side. The Sheason took his wooden case from the inner lining of his cloak. He produced a single sprig, opened Wendra’s mouth, and placed it on her tongue. Then he took her hand and placed it splay-fingered on his own chest, placing his fingertips against Wendra’s throat. A throaty hum rose from the Sheason’s lips.
Penit sat close, watching Vendanj with fascination and concern. As Vendanj worked, the others were still, watching and hoping.
A few moments later, Wendra convulsed, then took a long, ragged breath. Her eyes shot open, immediately searching for Penit. Seeing him, she settled beneath Vendanj’s hands, and began to breathe normally.
The Sheason then quickly tended to Braethen and Sutter, whose wounds were not severe. Sutter limped back into camp, his sword held loosely in his hands. Sweat ringed his armpits and collar. Between heavy gasps he muttered, “Had … them … worried.”
Still shaking from his encounter with the apparition, Tahn crawled his way back to camp and asked Vendanj what they all must have been thinking. “Where were you?” His face felt raw and dirty, but he didn’t bother to brush the dirt away. He propped himself up on his hands and stared through the fire at the Sheason. “We could have used you in this fight. My sister almost died!” Tahn began to cough.
Vendanj’s countenance remained impassive as he looked at Tahn. “I had to know what they know, Tahn. I need to understand their intentions. So I exposed you to this threat. I was always close. But it was safer here than it will be in the Saeculorum.”
The Sheason looked out into the dark. “They came to test us. It was just a band of advance scouts.” Then Vendanj sat back on the ground, the expenditure of personal Forda claiming him, his face gaunt and pale. In the firelight, sweat shone on his brow like tiny pearls.
“They have reached the hills ahead of us. They know there’s only one reason for us to travel north.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We must go. They know what we bring with us.” Vendanj looked at Wendra. “They know your gift. That is why they sought first to silence you. And you.” The Sheason settled a heavy gaze on Tahn. “Mark this: They have learned of you. Not as they knew you when first they came to the Hollows. Since you showed them an empty bow, they will now believe you know yourself.” This time Vendanj shared a look with Grant before turning back to Tahn. “It is better you die than live in their service. Remember this when you have to make choices.”
Tahn looked back at Vendanj. Hearing the Sheason talk of choices, much as others had done over the last few weeks, Tah
n began to understand that whatever awaited him in these mountains would require him to make a difficult decision.
“Rest a while. We will ride north when you’ve collected your strength.” Vendanj closed his eyes and breathed deeply, taking a sprig from his wooden case for his own tongue.
Tahn caught his breath, wondering what it meant that he’d raised an empty bow. He wasn’t even sure he understood why he did it. Then the Sheason’s words rang again in his ears:… better you die …
Tahn gathered his arrows. Sometime later they mounted again, and rode toward the Saeculorum.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Lineage
It was dark hour when Vendanj woke him.
They had ridden several hours to put distance between themselves and the Quiet, then found some shallow caves high on a defensible ridge. Tahn had barely fallen asleep.
“Tahn, please come with me. There are things we must discuss.”
It was the heart of night. Tahn crept from his cold bed and joined the Sheason far from the others under starlight and a hard moon. Vendanj waited as another dark figure joined them in the shadows. For several long moments, they kept a silent company before the Sheason began in a low voice.
“Very soon, Tahn, I will tell you your purpose here in the Saeculorum, at Restoration. I will tell you all. But some things that have been kept hidden must be revealed first. Because you must know of them beforehand; they must not surprise or frighten you when you come to Tillinghast.” Vendanj reached out and gave Tahn’s arm a reassuring squeeze.
“These are hard things to hear, Tahn. And you will know, in time, that my secrecy to this point has been to allow you to focus on this one goal. Do you understand?”
Tahn did understand, much as he hated the secrets. “But why tell me now? Is there something at Restoration that threatens me?” He looked at the dark shape just deep enough in the shadows that he could not recognize who it was.
Vendanj was quiet a moment. “Tillinghast threatens us all, but you more than the rest. And more will I say when we have drawn nearer the Heights. But right now, I want to give you a gift. It is a restoration of a sort, and will answer many of your questions.” He drew very close, and whispered. “Have courage, Tahn, and remember your Standing. You are now accountable.”
The Sheason put his hands on Tahn’s head and began to speak in a tongue Tahn had never heard. The touch of Vendanj’s hands warmed his head, relaxed him, made him feel safe and comfortable. He could not understand the Sheason’s words, but somehow understood them by the feeling in his heart. Then slowly, what Tahn could only call a veil slipped from his mind. As it did, memories returned to him, memories from his youth, before the Hollows.
Tahn fell to the hard rock.
In his mind, he fell still, down a long tunnel of forgotten things that made sense of thoughts and feelings that for years had made him feel odd, or sometimes even sick. Memories cascaded down on him like rushing waters.
He shut his eyes against the images. He knew without seeing that the shadow behind him was the man Grant.
And he knew that the man was his father.
The faceless man from his dreams and nightmares; the man who had taught him how to stand on a cliff and draw, and that what mattered was the intention of his pull, since there would be no target; the man on the barren plain—the Scar—the man with the wind-tortured voice; the man who taught him how to recognize his latent gift to hear the whispering of the Will and bring it into harmony with his weapon by reciting those words with every string drawn throughout his life: I draw with the strength of my arms and release as the Will allows—words that had defined him in ways which had often made him feel quite mad.
These words had stayed his hand when he should have defended his sister from the Bar’dyn.…
Tahn’s eyes shot open, and he looked at the shape in the shadow. “You fiend! Wendra! Is she my sister?!”
Grant rushed to Tahn, but Tahn put his boot in the man’s chest. “Answer me!”
The wind soughed around the cliff’s edge under the brittle moon. “No,” Grant said. “She is not.”
Tahn stared out at the long, dark plain of the Soliel far below. “Balatin! Why didn’t you tell me?!”
He saw in his mind a hundred memories of singing, dancing, hunting, playing, eating, celebrating Northsun, and feeling the warm love of the man … and it was all false! The life he had clung to, even while he could not recall the long past, had been nothing more than a hoax, a scheme, conceived by the people who claimed to love him.
And now, underneath it, he could see and feel his years of dry, lonely hopelessness spent in the Scar with Grant. He understood he had learned to fight and examine and live, all in anticipation of the day he would come into this place of last things and prove a sacrifice for a Sheason and his martyr’s quest to be right. Murder rose in Tahn’s mind.
The Sheason must have sensed it, because his hands took hold of Tahn again, imbuing a measure of peace to his troubled heart. Again Tahn felt warmth.
But it was not sufficient to quell the anger seething inside him. When Vendanj removed his hands, Tahn knelt under the harsh glare of the moon and swore an oath. “I will see you both plucked on the plains of death’s decay and expunged from every book that bears your name for good. And if there is some quality in me that qualifies me to stand at Tillinghast then you. Have. Failed!” he screamed into the vaulted heavens. “Because I will not go! For your lies and deception, and for stealing everything that was simple and honest and true from me, I would rather the Quiet come and the sun die in the east than help you fulfill that plan that made me its sacrifice.” He drew in a great breath. “No!!”
He collapsed again and wept bitter tears.
He understood so much now, so many of the questions he had asked tentatively all his life, because probing too deep touched on possibilities he did not care to learn. But in awful revelation under the hands of this Sheason, he understood. He was Grant’s son, trained for ten years in the barrenness of the Scar, prepared for a time none of them hoped would come, but then sent away to the Hollows, where they held safe their secret. Where Grant had sent his best friend and his wife, whom he had known and loved from his life at Recityv before his exile, to care for Tahn as their own son.
“Balatin,” Tahn cried. “Why?” The tears on his cheeks streaked hot and painful.
As he lay beneath those same stars that had once been the far points of dreams, he realized that the man who should have loved him first and best, his real father, was the one who had sent him away.
And slipping farther into the abyss—successive shadows of his own eternal nightmare—Tahn realized that though he now knew the awful truth about his birth father, he still could not recall the face of the woman who had given birth to him. Even now, there remained secrets.
Tahn again cried out, anger and frustration and sadness competing in his heart. He had been an instrument. That was all his life had ever been about. The days since his forgotten youth, the days of the Hollows, had been his to live and remember. But they were a disguise to hide the purpose Vendanj and Grant thought might one day come, and for which he had been removed from the company of those who should have loved him.
But his heart also wept for the loss of the memories of the life and family he’d believed were his own. For Balatin, Voncencia, and Wendra. His heart broke the most because of her. He’d not even been able to defend her because of these things they’d put in his head about the Will. The guilt and torment belonged more appropriately to these awful stewards bending over him in this far place. Would that he could transfer that cost to them, as the Velle did with their villainous art! He knew now that the Sheason had placed a veil over his memory, causing him to forget everything before he came to the Hollows; likewise, he knew the Sheason had done something to Wendra’s memory, since she believed Tahn was her brother.
Into the dark, unyielding stone of the Saeculorum he cried, “Who am I? Who am I!”
He wondered if
those strange men and the unknown crests he’d seen at Balatin’s funeral had belonged to these conspirators. Had his real father been there and not come to make himself known?
As he wept bitter tears into the crags of the mountains, Tahn’s anger turned to hatred, and he decided that he did not care. He hoped that Grant remained forever in the Scar, where the endless sun and lifelessness could beat on him until time passed him by.
Only for the little ones at the cradle … which he recalled with painful clarity. Even now he heard the cries of babes he’d held as he and Grant had sought homes for them.
Then the Sheason spoke. “There were many reasons for Grant to accompany us, Tahn. But this is first among them: He’s your father. Hear what he has to say.”
Tahn glared up at the exile.
Grant looked back, his eyes hard to read. “Tahn, you remember now that you lived with me in the Scar. For ten years you trained before I sent you away. I could tell you it was to give you a better life, and that wouldn’t be a lie. But neither is it the real reason, because I would have sent you there regardless.”
The exile looked up at Vendanj, then resumed. “Early in your life, Tahn, it became clear that you possess a special gift, a certain bond between you and the Will, so that sometimes you can sense things about it that virtually nobody else can perceive. Not all the time. And not for all things. At least not when you were a child. But with time, the ability grew. I knew I could not hide this, even in the Scar, from those who would seek to abuse your gift or even take your life … as the Quiet now tries to do. That is why I sent you to the Hollows. It was once set apart—hallowed—by the First Ones, as a safe haven from the Quiet. I thought you would be safe there, especially in the care of my closest friend … Balatin Junell.”
A fresh wave of anguish thickened in Tahn’s chest and throat, and he bit back more tears. Grant tried to touch him, to console him, but Tahn jerked away. The man withdrew his hand.
“But even before sending you to the Hollows, Tahn, we suspected your gift might one day be needed in the way it now is. That is why I taught you to draw with the strength of your arms, but release as the Will allows.”
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