Vault Of Heaven 01 - The Unremembered (127 page)

Tahn grinned. “And I’ve never been so glad to bear the company of a man who plays in the dirt.”

Sutter laughed, but then his face drew taut. “When I saw you disappear from the pass, I wasn’t sure I’d see you again.” His friend took Tahn’s hand in the familiar Hollows grip, clasping him tight. “Not that I doubted you, Tahn. But no one knew what Tillinghast held in store, and I wish I could have come.…”

“You’d love it,” Tahn said. “The loam there is six inches deep, and rich with the smell of expected growth.” Then Tahn gave Nails a mischievous grin before wrapping him in an embrace.

Braethen came up as the two broke their hug. “It is good to see you, Tahn.” The sodalist hunkered down on Tahn’s other side. “It would seem that you’ve proven yourself at Restoration.” Then he whispered, “Thank you.”

Tahn took the sodalist’s hand in the same Hollows shake.

Wendra came next, slowing to a stop a few strides away. She held his gaze long enough to say, “I am glad you are alive, Tahn … though others do not share your fortune.”

Even with her words hanging between them, Tahn’s throat closed with emotion at the sight of her. He wanted to stand and take her in his arms, apologize for his misdeeds, promise that all would be different. He wanted to feel her heart thaw, to regain the closeness they’d always shared.

Wendra then moved aside as Vendanj came up next, Grant trailing him close behind.

The Sheason looked deathly ill. He sweated as they all did, but his flesh hung from his face, dark circles ringing his eyes. His hood was back, revealing dark hair slick with perspiration that clung to pallid skin. His shoulders hunched deep as though the weight of his own cloak was too much for him to bear.

He stopped, and made no quick attempt to speak. Looking at Tahn, he leveled his eyes, which never seemed to dim, even now. Again, Tahn had the feeling he was being measured, weighed, by the penetrating gaze of the Sheason.

Then Vendanj asked Grant’s assistance in helping him to sit. The exile eased the Sheason to the ground, and propped a large fallen branch behind him so he could recline.

Standing straight again, Grant gave Tahn a look both proud and relieved. But he said nothing.

When Vendanj had fully recovered his breath, he folded his hands in his lap. His first question caught Tahn off guard. “What stick is this that you carry?”

Tahn looked into his hand, finding that he had not let go of the cloudwood branch.

“A walking cane,” Tahn answered, confused.

“It is cloudwood,” Vendanj stated. “But not greyed yet as these fallen sentinels.” Without lifting his stare, he pointed at the tree behind Tahn.

“I’ve seen only one live tree. It grows at the edge of Tillinghast.”

A look of relief showed on the Sheason’s face. “One tree.” His look grew distant. “A forest, a world, can be sired from one tree.” Then his scrutiny blazed. “Tell me, did Zephora speak to you of Quillescent?”

Beside Tahn, Braethen flinched.

Tahn had been called this name, he realized, many times. He had no idea what it meant. The Sheason’s interest disquieted him, nearly as much as the name itself. But Zephora had used it to darkly ingratiate himself to Tahn, hoping to inspire Tahn’s allegiance or alliance.

“No, he said nothing of it,” Tahn answered. He watched carefully for another sign of relief in the Sheason’s face. Vendanj gave no indication of either relief or concern.

A small silence stretched out between them all, broken thankfully by Mira returning from the ledge.

“Tahn rolled the body into the abyss,” she said, as if answering a question Tahn hadn’t heard.

“It is just as well,” Vendanj replied. “The One has ways of reclaiming his own. In the abyss, Zephora is forever lost.”

Shifting, Tahn looked up at Mira. “Why did you break your own sword? It drew Zephora’s attention and gave me time.… What did he call you? Oathbreaker?”

“It’s not important right now,” Mira said, then shared a strange look with Vendanj.

Clearly it
was
important, but Tahn hadn’t the energy to pursue any more mysteries. But he did have one question. “How did you kill him?”

The Far stared back with her bright grey eyes. “It was not I, Tahn. When you turned and fired into the abyss, things began rapidly to change around us. The mist pulsed with reflections of light like lightning streaking inside a cloud. At the ledge, each pulse changed the landscape, the position of rocks and trees. The very air was one moment fragrant and new, the next burnt and sharp. The ghosts of proud cloudwoods flickered around the edge as though showing the possible gardens that might have grown there. At times, the ledge itself extended, leaving Zephora and me standing in a dense wood. In other moments, our feet hung over the abyss, the cliff strides behind us as the mist caressed our bodies and lit our minds with flashes of opportunity.”

Mira looked back in the direction of Tillinghast. “And in other moments, Tahn, Zephora wasn’t there at all. In still others, he lay dead upon the loam.”

She stopped, turning her gaze directly at him. “In the flash of some moments … I was not there, either. And at times … I was conscious of my own lifeless body fallen deep into the soil.”

Mira went on. “You alone remained unchanged in your pose and permanence, Tahn, staring into the clouds as though you looked upon realities I could not see.

“Then the mist began to whip, the fluctuations of light nearly blinding me. Streaks of the mist began to lash over the ledge, stabbing toward Zephora. I jumped away just as the fury of the clouds shot in a thick streamer and wrapped Zephora in its fierce embrace. I watched the mist penetrate his cloak, his skin. It wove in and out of his mouth and nose, streaming from his ears and seeping from his eyes. The mist seemed to invade his every pore, passing through him as though he was insubstantial.

“The creature shrieked, his howls shattering the stone around him and causing my flesh to ache. Even in the grasp of Tillinghast, Zephora reached out to transfer his own pain, and its touch tugged at my skin. Shafts of light began to shoot from his nails, and his eyes, and soon he was so bright that I could no longer look at him. He blazed a moment in a state of sheer brilliance. Then the light abruptly faded, and Zephora fell to the ground. The mists receded, but you did not move.

“As the ground began to shake so that I considered pulling you back from the edge … it stopped. The mist became at once still, the wind gone, the ground quiet. No further flashes of light or dark, only the soft light of the mists.

“And you collapsed. I could not revive you, and so went to get Vendanj.”

“What happened in the pass? The last I saw, a great blast rose out of the mountain. It pushed me to the ground.”

Sutter chimed in, his eyes alight with a tale to tell. “Zephora shoved his hand into the soil. A circle began to spread, stripping color from the dirt. His eyes blackened and then a great burst threw us back. It felt like what I imagine the Bourne might be like. I suddenly felt all my desires drain away. I could feel myself being lifted and hurled by the force of the blast, and knew I would soon strike stone, but in that moment, I didn’t care.”

Sutter swallowed hard. “It was like that time when Haley Reloita, Shiled’s son, got trapped in the well just before the rains came. Do you remember?”

Tahn nodded. No one had been able to get Haley out. The well was too narrow for men, too dangerous for a child. Haley’s fall had brought loose well-stones down upon him, half burying him in the stagnant, shallow water at the well’s bottom. Hours later, it began to rain, swelling the river, and from an underground tributary, the water in the well, too. They watched as the water rose, and Haley cried. Frantic men lowered ropes that Haley could not hold firm enough to pull him from the stones. Eventually, the water covered him completely.…

“That was the way I felt in the darkness,” Sutter said. “I’ve never had anything hit my chest harder than the force of that blast, but I’d take twenty such blows to not feel the anguish that crawled inside my mind as the blackness surrounded me…” Then Nails smiled weakly. “Just give me my roots back.”

“The veil weakens,” Vendanj said in an ominous voice. “The First Ones created the Tract of Desolation to form a veil which might hold the malefic ones at bay. It is safeguarded and sung by Leiholan at the Descant Cathedral. Its design is to restrain all those sworn to Quietus, but especially those capable of calling upon the Will. That is why we’ve known only Bar’dyn in the Land for some time. Zephora’s emergence into the light of men represents a threat we cannot imagine. It means other Draethmorte may soon pass through the Hand.”

“It means more than that,” Grant added, his voice gruff. He looked at Vendanj, then at Wendra. “It means the Tract has been compromised somehow. Or the Leiholan fail.”

Tahn’s sister turned an icy look on the exile, seeming to take his words as an indictment.

Vendanj did not respond to Grant’s grim theory. Instead he focused again on Tahn. “And you, are you resolved to stand evermore as you did at Tilling-hast?”

What real option did he have? He clenched his teeth at the thought. But sitting in the company of Sutter and Braethen, and to a lesser degree, Wendra, he realized he would do what he had always done. He would speak the words and he would rise in the earliest moments of dawn, while the world remained dark, and imagine a sunrise to light the sky. And though he had no reason for it, he took the smallest comfort from these patterns of his life.

Returning Vendanj’s severe gaze, Tahn mustered his confidence and said, “I will give my best.”

“Then give me your cane,” Vendanj replied.

He handed the branch of cloudwood to the Sheason, who took it and hefted it twice in his upturned palms. He then clasped his fingers around it and closed his eyes. The wood began to reshape itself, coming alive in the renderer’s hands. Slowly, it turned, moving as though alive, but drawing itself into a definable shape. Within moments, the branch had become a sleek bow, fashioned of the ebony cloudwood.

“Newly fallen from a live tree, the branch still courses with the nourishment of Restoration.” He handed the bow to Tahn. “I have sealed the mist inside, giving the branch eternal vigor. It will serve you when you draw fittingly.”

Tahn admired his new bow for a moment. Then his mind returned to where they had been interrupted by Mira returning from the ledge. “What is Quillescent?”

Vendanj gave him a penetrating look. “Let us speak of that another time, Tahn. Be glad in the knowledge that you have survived Tillinghast. Whatever comes will not come uncontested. This is mighty, and will surely anger Quietus. For now, let us rest.” With that, the Sheason eased himself onto his side and closed his eyes.

Still keeping secrets. Well, I’ve now secrets of my own.
Tahn patted his tunic where he’d pocketed the necklace he’d lifted from Zephora’s dead body. That, and the results of choices he’d witnessed at Tillinghast which lingered in his mind—the ends of choices yet to make.

CHAPTER EIGHTY

A Refrain from Quiet

The stars still held sway when Tahn stirred awake. Gentle dew coated his face with freshness he took a moment to enjoy. Around him, the hulking shapes of fallen trees rose up. Tahn folded back his blanket and crept past his companions to the end of a nearby cloudwood. There, he used the snakelike roots to climb atop the tree, where he stood and surveyed the world around him. In that broad valley, he became the highest point, and quietly mourned for the forest now blanketing the ground. Looking up, the sky shone with stars Tahn did not remember ever seeing. For a moment, he felt as though he stood between the earth and sky, the strength of soil and the hope of the untouchable.

And there, he imagined the coming of the sun, a slow, beautiful dawn that turned the skies a hundred shades of blue.

He shut his eyes and took deep, deliberate breaths, not allowing the intrusion of other thoughts, and briefly recaptured a portion of the peace the ritual had long ago given him.

“There’s a kind of glory in it, isn’t there?”

Tahn’s eyes snapped open, and he whirled around to see the Sheason standing a few strides behind, watching him.

“In what?” Tahn asked, discountenanced by the intrusion.

“In the coming of another day, the awakening of the world from its slumber.”

Tahn turned back to his view of the valley. “A small comfort, yes.”

“And why small?” Vendanj asked, his tone calm, almost fatherly.

Taking a moment to survey the devastation around him again, Tahn said, “Morning sun used to thrill me, the very look of it on a farmer’s neatly planted field, the hazy way it fell through the leaves, dancing in patterns on the frosted ground below. I liked the idea that things were made visible again, that the light held a promise of reuniting friends, shared meals, and that one’s dreams might find their form in the light of a new day.”

He waited, feeling suddenly ungrateful. “But the covenant we make with the sun is not what I once thought … I still seek its return to the sky, but now only for warmth and a sure place to put my feet.”

“And where is the smallness in that?” Vendanj persisted.

Tahn exhaled a deep breath, watching it cloud the bracing air. “There are days that the warmth of my blanket is enough for me, days when I fear the path the sun lights for us.” Tahn turned to face the Sheason. “I don’t know why it matters to me to witness the birth of each day. It does not feel to me that we are a world watched over.”