Still, the Sheason did not move, seeming to scrutinize Braethen, perhaps to compel him to some realization by the imposition of his presence.
Then Braethen softly touched the blank scroll and muttered again, “Everyone knew me by name.…”
With unhurried hands he withdrew from his pack a green-colored vial and a quill. Removing the stopper from the vial, he dipped the quill and set the ink aside. Then, placing Ogea’s empty parchment on the book in his lap, he drew a single blade of grass at the topmost center. He rendered it expertly, as though he saw in his head precisely what he meant to draw.
Braethen did not look up at the Sheason, but stared down at the image as the ink dried. After several moments he whispered, “Ja’Nene.”
Vendanj looked satisfied. He nodded and said, “Your own story, sodalist. An important one,” and walked away.
Braethen rolled the scroll and carefully replaced it in his pack. When he withdrew his hands, he held a needle and several strands of thread. Taking up his cloak, he set to the wool, fashioning over the left breast the symbol he’d drawn on the parchment.
“You’re planning on telling me why you’ve chosen this as your sigil, right?” Tahn smiled, nudging Braethen.
“We’ll share a sack full of secrets sometime soon,” Braethen answered, and went on with his stitching. He allowed a thin, dubious smile as he met Tahn’s questioning gaze.
“I look forward to it,” Tahn said, nudging his friend again.
Moments later, Mira called, “Gather your things.”
Braethen closed his book and put his belongings away. He shouldered Ogea’s satchel and sheathed his sword. “Well, let’s go see Tillinghast.”
* * *
Once through the pass, the air suddenly warmed, as though the seasons of men held no sway beyond it. A shallow valley stretched before them, the mountains rising again at its far side.
Across the valley floor, trees had fallen heavily to the earth, their trunks half buried in the soil. Once-elaborate root systems stood exposed in twisted knots. It struck Tahn like a garden of stone statuary tumbled by a quake. Simply seeing the length of these trees suggested to Tahn the majesty that had belonged to them when they had stood and reached heavenward.
The inscrutable visage of the Sheason fell to a kind of despair Tahn couldn’t remember seeing.
In a careful whisper, the sodalist explained. “The mountains at the end of the Saeculorum are described as being filled with the beauty and grandeur of the Cloudwood, trees reaching up more than a hundred strides, their branches and trunks denser than steel folded a dozen times. It is known as the Eternal Grove or Undying Forest, because its wood was said to be impervious to the axes of men, its bark resistant to disease. It is written that during each century, the cloudwood grows by but one growth ring, and each ring comes so near its neighbor they can scarcely be distinguished.”
As the Sheason followed Mira onward, Braethen spoke, his voice hushed in reverence to a woodland now vanished, the land somehow denuded, and left dotted with scrub oak, low cedars, and grasses brown as from an early autumn.
“History records that the First Ones created the grove at the end of the world to be a source of renewal and growth. In its strong roots, the weave of the earth could continue should men prove to be poor stewards. Though the Fathers abandoned this world once the Artificer tainted its potential with his ruthless ambition, it is believed that they hoped the land and its people might survive through the strength of the iron roots weaving a new loam in which men might plant, and through the reemergence one day of the covenant language.” Braethen paused a moment, considering his own words.
“Much of the balance of Forda I’Forza is the special rendering of the Cloudwood as it claims form from the abyss into which its roots crawl.”
Tahn turned back to him. “That is where we’ll find Tillinghast, isn’t it?”
Braethen looked from one eye to the other. “Yes.” The sodalist paused briefly before resuming. “But the Cloudwood is…” he trailed off.
The party had descended into the midst of the fallen sentinels, the girth of the half-sunken trees twice and three times the height of Vendanj. Mira led them between two parallel trees, the trunks forming a roofless conduit along the basin. Braethen walked near one tree, placing a hand on the gnarled bark. “This is why the Scar expands. The balance is undone.”
From several strides ahead, Vendanj’s voice boomed, “That is not the whole of it!” The Sheason whirled about, halting them all in mid-stride. “The loss of these stewards and emblems”—he gestured around him at the dead wood without looking—“is an indictment of us all. A blemish we wear as a race, every man and woman on the comfortable side of the Bourne. But it is also the vile product of Quietgiven, prideful, lustful, scornful creatures who would take for themselves and leave the penalties of their avarice for us all to pay in the body of a wounded land.
“We have but one thing that is truly our own, truly ours to give. Everything else belongs not to us, but is ours to watch over, or ours to squander.” Vendanj looked around, seeking each pair of eyes in reproachful instruction.
“There is no great mystery in it, and yet it is priceless beyond all you might own.” Then his voice softened. “Still, some give it away as cheap and sullied as a harlot’s bed linen.” His eyes came to rest on Tahn. “It is our will. Nothing else is forever ours, nothing else so keenly sought by those who hope to Quiet our world, and nothing else much less regarded by the noble, reasoning beasts we have become.” Again his eyes sought each companion, silently naming them.
“Beyond this valley lies the last earth and stone risen from the roots of these fallen sentinels.” He pointed to the peaks of another range just visible over the top of the dead cloudwoods. “And where that earth comes to an end is Tillinghast, the Heights of Restoration, beyond which there is only emptiness, the mists of Restoration that bristle with the permutations of countless lives and choices. It is a cauldron of breath, of Forda, a mirror to help us see behind our own mask.” Vendanj lifted his arms skyward, clenching his fists as though he might take something in hand.
Tahn felt for the lines of the scar on the back of his hand, so like a mallet.
“We come with our petty differences, our disinclinations. And when we taste the mists on our tongues, they will be a scourge that threatens to unmake us. Or when Tillinghast shows us our true selves, we will wish to be unmade.”
Vendanj stood motionless for long moments. Then he softly stepped close to Tahn and whispered in his ear, “Prove me wrong. Stand fast at Tillinghast.”
Deep inside, Tahn felt a seed of hope. He wanted badly to do just that.
He turned to Sutter. His friend was white, as though he’d seen a ghost, the very penaebra of lost life.
What has he seen?
They continued on, and as they neared a narrow canyon at the far end of the valley, the sun slid behind the mountains behind them, casting everything in blue shadow. With it came a preternatural stillness, absent the whir of crickets or the call of larks taking to their nests, making every footfall large in the quiet. Sutter started a fire to ward off the chill.
But before Tahn could make his way there, Grant cornered him near a fallen cloudwood. “I know you don’t want to listen to me, but this once, if never again, please.”
It was the only time Tahn had heard the exile use that word. The plea inside it softened Tahn enough to nod.
“I didn’t come to Recityv or with the Sheason to entreat a reunion with you, Tahn. I’ll be honest with you; I don’t know if anything we can do will turn back the tide of what has begun in our world. I sit in the midst of it every day, and sometimes I believe the Quiet has already come, and we are just hearing the echo of our own death throes. It is said by dark poets that we are nothing more than walking earth, upright dust, consuming breath in ignorance.”
Tahn instantly remembered hearing these last words from the creature in the wilds of Stonemount. He’d thought then that they were famili
ar. He knew now, with his restored memory, where he’d first heard them.
“There are days,” Grant continued, “when I half believe that. But…”
He paused, searching for the right words.
“But whatever you end up thinking or feeling about me, I want you to understand, especially as you go to the Heights, that your mother and I are proud of you. She loves you, Tahn. Her ache when we conceived the plan to hide you away from scrutinizing eyes almost killed her. And for my part, I might have accepted a death sentence rather than go into exile in the Scarred Lands. But we wanted you to have a chance at a good life. And if it came to it, I wanted you to have the strength of body and character to stand at Restoration.”
He put a hand on Tahn’s shoulder.
“I know now that you have become all that we ever could have hoped. What comes after may be black and may destroy you or even yet the land of men, I don’t know. But up to this moment, here, now, nothing more could have been asked of you.
“And come Quiet or chorus, Tahn, I stand behind you with anything that is mine to give … anything.”
With that, he removed his hand and left Tahn without another word or look.
Tahn did not know how to feel. But he did see something he’d not seen before, since the man for once did not wear his battle gloves: a scar on the back of his left hand in the shape of a hammer or mallet. The image suggested to Tahn’s beleaguered mind yet more similarities between him and the exile. But he put them out of mind. Right now, this near Restoration, he could bear no more.
The exile took to the fire for some warmth.
Vendanj stared at Tahn, flame flickering in his steely eyes. He stroked his beard and began to speak. “Tomorrow we will come to Tillinghast. You must be prepared.”
Tahn believed the Sheason was talking to everyone but more specifically to him.
“Tomorrow, at dawn, you will come to the place where Forda and Forza meet, Ars and Arsa. It is a place of absolute power, absolute potential … for now, at least. There can be no prevarication at Tillinghast, Tahn. While it represents the finest and most potent gift given to men in life, it is indifferent to your hopes, indifferent to you. Take care to comport yourself with utter honesty.”
Then the Sheason looked deep into Tahn’s eyes, again making him think that the renderer could know his private thoughts. While holding his gaze, he began in a softer voice, “You will have restored to you all that you have done, all that you are. You have the shield of melura to answer for most of your years, but we have not come quickly enough to make that the fullness of your protection, nor would it be enough in any case. Even though you are not accountable before you Stand, these things must be restored to you—every misgiving, every ill thought. That will be painful enough.
“The ripple effect of your every malice and mischief is something you can’t deny, and will be yours to see and feel again, yours to admit to.”
Tahn realized then why the Sheason had restored his memory: if he hadn’t, Tillinghast would have. The shock of it there might have undone them all.
“But Restoration is more than remembrance,” Vendanj explained. “More than a scale to measure worth or value. Restoration will put a name to who you have become, who you are capable of being.”
“This is our purpose,” the Sheason explained. “This is the purpose of every night you’ve spent away from your Hollows skies. It is the meaning in your sunrise.”
Tahn puzzled at this, knowing the Sheason was aware of Tahn’s morning vigil, but sensing that Vendanj did not fully know any more than he did why he was compelled to witness the birth of every dawn.
“We have seen the destruction of that which we once thought timeless. In coming here, we have learned the threat is present from the simplest blade of grass”—Vendanj spared a look at Braethen—“to the greatest of our nations. The Whited One is restless; his influence widens, and does so at our own bidding. Against legions without number and his mastery in rendering the Will, we are of no consequence.
“And yet he has sought to put our purpose at an end. Why? Because he fears anyone he cannot enslave.” Narrowing his gaze, Vendanj lent fervor to his words. “You will draw your bow tomorrow at Restoration, Tahn, to know if you are chosen to continue to resist Quietus, and … Will and Sky … stand against Quietus himself if the time comes.”
The Sheason said even more softly, “This is the final answer to your question of what we set out to do.”
The revelation descended on Tahn and stole his breath. Dear Fathers, they mean for me to stand against the Whited One! He tried to speak, and could not. He looked at Sutter and saw a stark, dumbfounded expression on his face. Tahn then looked at each of his companions, seeking he knew not what, but feeling as though he needed to grasp onto something, someone.
Then from the crevasse, a deep wind rose up, shrilling into the night air. “When will you tell the boy the truth, Sheason? He is Quillescent.”
The word chilled Tahn to the marrow. Though pronounced in the awful voice of this dark intruder, it somehow held the ring of truth. Tahn didn’t know what it meant, but as he whipped about to look into the crevasse, he saw an ominous figure float up unaided from its depths, and knew that whatever its meaning, it would bring him harm.
Vendanj threw back his cloak, and rose in a single, graceful motion. Grant and Braethen jumped to his side, brandishing their blades as the Sheason crossed his arms across his chest and stared over them at the deep cowl of the floating form.
The figure rose three strides above the edge of the crevasse, and peered down at them. “This is the hope to which men cling?” A bitter laugh chafed the very air, and shook the stone beneath and around them. “Quillescent or no, the measure of your Will is feeble.” The cowl shifted noticeably, facing Tahn. “A mistake that I might rectify with but a word.”
“You’ve no dominion here!” Vendanj shouted above the howl of wind still emanating from the crevasse. “And no heart among us will yield!”
“No dominion? I am Zephora,” the creature declared. “My authority is as old as the first Draethmorte called after the injustices of Juliad, the closing of the Bourne, and the imprisonment of Quietus and all the works of his hand.” Zephora’s voice grew harsher still. “I am more lord here than all your councils; I am more enduring than all your restored choices.” He threw his head back and laughed with the voice of the damned.
Tahn hadn’t needed a name to feel the difference of this creature from the Quietgiven that had pursued them since the Hollows. His concealed countenance emanated abjection, the hint of a visage within the cowl frowning at them with pity and anger. Beneath its glare, Tahn’s skin prickled with goose bumps and his fingers tingled with an itch he could not sufficiently rub away. Somehow it reminded Tahn of the taste and feel he’d had of the sweating prison stone in his cell beneath Solath Mahnus. Only the light and will of Rolen had mitigated the debasement that place had forced on Tahn’s beleaguered mind. And yet that memory approached the despair and malevolence of this new being only as near as an aspen stripling might a cloudwood. His very voice reminded Tahn of the soughing of winter winds through dead trees, and the anguish of a mourner too overcome to articulate the words of his grief. That, and the patience and stillness of an ossuary. He invaded Tahn’s mind like a secret plaguing his conscience, and moved as one with the soil beneath his feet, as one presiding over interment.
Mira backed away from the creature, her swords held defensively before her.
Tahn raised his bow, nocking an arrow as Sutter drew alongside him, his sword gripped firmly in both hands. Speaking mostly to himself, Nails said in a whisper, “He said the first Draethmorte.”
Braethen’s sword began to thrum with a single, pure note as it started to glow, the light pulsing. The sodalist stepped protectively in front of Vendanj, but was recalled to his place with a soft spoken command.
Zephora descended to the edge of the crevasse, landing softly, always facing Tahn. On the ground, he stood as tall as Vendanj
, though thinner and frailer looking. “Concede,” the Given said. “Do not martyr yourselves against the ages of my desire and power to wield more perfectly the Will that binds you.” He pointed toward Vendanj. “You labor under the misjudgments of generations that did not correctly interpret the meanings inherent in a Charter whose authors held no authority to write it. Your handling of these precious gifts dishonors you as you seek to keep locked a prison without knowledge of its prisoners.”
Anger flared, and Zephora’s next words came pushed on breath heated as by a furnace. “And we grow tired! The prattling of these generations fuels our passion for Quiet. No more will we accept the tethers placed on us for something—” The creature’s words degenerated into an anguished roar. “Prepare yourselves!”
As the folds of Zephora’s cloak began to unfurl, his arms stretching preparatory to some invocation, Vendanj lowered his wrists and cupped his palms. Light sparked in the Sheason’s hands and grew rapidly in intensity. The mountain pass lit as though from two suns, when suddenly Vendanj brought his hands together, and closed them into fists. Light streaked from between his fingers and sought Zephora, shooting from the renderer’s hands like brilliant shafts of sunlight through a darkened cloud.
The attack swept Zephora back, but only briefly. The rays of light began bending around him, unable or unwilling to touch him any longer. From within the depths of Zephora’s cowl, Tahn thought he saw a dark smile.
Vendanj grabbed Mira’s shoulder and roughly pulled her close, focusing his eyes upon hers, but saying nothing. The Far nodded, as if hearing something unvoiced. She broke past Vendanj and Grant and grabbed hold of Tahn. “Come!” she commanded.
Tahn did not hesitate to follow as Mira dashed to the far side of the pass. He stretched his strides to keep from slowing her. Reaching the far side, Tahn turned back to see the others position themselves between him and Zephora. As he watched, the member of the dark Draethmorte did not make any great or hasty countermove, no flames or shifting of earth. Instead, the fugitive from the Bourne slowly and with a darkly beguiling smile, opened his arms as though to receive them all unto his bosom. And with that graceful gesture, a cold silence settled across the pass, stealing sound and replacing it with an ineffable sadness, a mortal grief that chilled Tahn more completely than any rain or ice ever had. It stopped him in his tracks. It bore down upon everything, seeming to press in upon the stone and sand, weighing heavy in the air, touching their hearts with the gall of bitterness. The malevolent and destructive moment was rendered almost lovingly by Zephora, reminiscent of a mother looking into the face of her sleeping child, as though this was the creature’s purest, most powerful emotion and need.
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